IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE

Heavyduty053 · August 30, 2011

This post is written to remind all of the impending event that is to come. It will involve all people of this earth and there will be no escaping its moment. Those who know Jesus as the savior of his children will know what i am talking about and the rest will read, scoff, try to debunk it by their misunderstanding or their lack of knowledge by choice.

Jesus said behold when i return i will come like a thief in the middle of the nite, and all who know me and all who believe in me will hear my call. In that moment in the twinkling of an eye all this world will be changed. His return is eminent as set forth by the father to set in motion the cleasning of this earth of its sinful nature. The earth and all its inhabitants who are left here will not have but seven years from that moment to liveand then the end will come. Yes you can be saved during this time but it will be hard you will suffer the some of the bowls of judgement. God set forth this moment in time and it is coming to believers and non believers alike. It will be a joyous time for all who know him and a sorrowful and painful time for all that is left. What i am refering to is the rapture and the time proceeding it. It will be a time when people will want to kill themselves to end the pain but death will escape them. I understand why some has lack of understanding of this because they have never had the desire or even a wish to draw closer to God, but there will be no excuses offered on the day of judgement. Silence will be the order of the moment for the sinful when his last words to you will be " depart from me for i never knew you". Your destiny will be fulfilled according to your choice.

Question:: one morning when you get up and turn on the news and the tv is silent, you look outside and the birds have stopped singing you find out that there are cars all over the road with people missing, planes have crashed because pilots disappeared in flight, friends and neighbors gone, on your way to work you notice busy roads are vacant except for a few who are left and you are still here.....Jesus said when i come, " two will be working one will be taken and one will be left, husband and wife shall be lying in bed one will be taken and one will be left, this is the way it will for the believers and non believers. I can hear the scoffers trying to debunk this already but that is to be expected and is alright. Jesus said my wish is that no one should miss the rapture but it is also declared that many will hold on to this this world and what it has to offer rather than put their faith in him. Narrow is the way and wide is the gate to destruction and many will fall in. Some words of every message will fall on deaf ears and some will lift up and at least remind people what is set in stone and is coming. The ones who know Jesus and put their faith in him to guide our paths can see the signs winding down each day closer to that moment but it should not hinder us because we will not miss his call. All the money in the world will not be worth missing this moment. To God be the glory and may something i write be an inspiration to someone who still don't know you like i do, reach out and touch the readers of DV and show them that you are real and inspire them with understanding so that they might see also............Heavyduty053

moose 57 · August 30, 2011

GOD IS THE GLORY, not money

Aqua Dude · August 30, 2011

the rapture is false doctrine!

there will be no rapture, there will be a series of DEFINED events and then will mark the beginning of 7 years, but the bible does not define 7 years hevenly time or earthly time, in the bible is says a 1000 years is like 1 day to God, therefore 7 years could be a very long time.

We are not in the end times, stop with the FEAR DOOM GLOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH crap, its over rated and out dated people are gaining knowledge that the things that are happening on Earth are natural and not man made and not God sent as punishment. The news that you do hear about when it comes to evil only seems abundant simply because we have the internet and TV, information gets to more places. All this crap has been going on for ages, this age is no different

so just stop it :angry:

Edited August 30, 2011 by Aqua Dude

oatman_230 · August 30, 2011

There are correct and incorrect statements that i see going on about this thread and i would just like to say that if anyone reading or commenting on this post has ever had doubt, unanswerable questions, and noticed a lot of conflicting statements from the many christian religions out there....then please pick up Walter J. Veith's "Total Onslaught" series. It's 36 disc DVD set and I personally have never seen the bible presented in this way before. He covers everything in a very clear, common sense perspective and leaves absolutely no room for error or doubt afterwards. He does not give his opinion or conjecture on what he thinks the bible is saying....just quotes the bible. You can go here http://amazingdiscoveries.org/webstore/us/p to get it. It's $260 but well worth it. It will confirm your faith if you are a believer, and it most likely will bring you to Christ if you don't believe. I'm not trying to pump sales for this guy or anything like that. I have been searching for real answers for many many years and always ran into a brick wall somewhere. If you can go out and spend almost $1200 for 1 million dinar then I implore you take the time to invest in Jesus Christ. These videos will change your outlook on life, and in the lord. If we had already had the RV, I promise every one of you that if you asked for a set of his, I would gladly purchase it myself and send it to you. Unfortunately we are waiting for it still. But on an end note and just something to think about.....Do you think you know your bible? Have you ACTUALLY READ the whole thing from front to back without skipping through some stuff? If you say yes then I'll ask this 1 question.

Q: Everyone know the story of Noah and Flood....even little children, so "How many of every kind of animal and living creature went into the Ark?" Was it 2 by 2?......2 elephants, 2 lions, 2 dear....ect.

Go read your bible learn something new for the day and then ask yourself why it is taught to us differently, and why are the facts not read aloud in the bible? Then ask yourself, "If the preachers and sunday school teachers are not teaching the real story of Noah and the Flood, then what else are they not teaching and may be unaware of?" Seek and ye shall find.

bamagirl · August 30, 2011

Great post Heavy, +1.

Motown · August 30, 2011

My heart is sad to all who dont understand this truth.If you want to see the end coming just come to Detroit it is turning into a ghost town

Nelg · August 30, 2011

Heavyduty,

I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm and desire to share the message of the Bible with others. It would be wonderful to have ten thousand proclaiming the gospel of Christ from the housetops.

With this present post, you have opened a controversial subject even among the saints. Therefore, you will have individuals who agree with your take on Scripture, and those who disagree with some of your statements. I am one of the latter.

Though I firmly believe in the Second Coming of Christ and that there will be a day of judgment for the entire population of humanity from both past and future, there are some difficulties with the way you have described His coming to judge. Christ has come many times to bring physical judgment on nations or peoples, but these were not His final coming. He was present even at the judgment of Babylon, Jerusalem, Assyria, Persia, Egypt, Germany and many other nations of the past. The Bible even predicts/prophecies these events. And, as you have stated, He will come to judge the world on the last day. Now, my problem is that you have intermingled the passages that refer to the physical judgment with those that apply to the “last day” judgment. To do so misleads the reader.

I am familiar with the Bible and know exactly where these passages are found. The average person does not know the Bible that well and has no idea where to find what you have said. May I suggest that when you write your articles/posts that you site the passages quoted and not make the assumption that the reader knows the Scripture. This will help others in their search for understanding.

Please do not place my comments in the realm of a scoffer or the “debunk er”. That is the last thing that I would want to do. I agree. The Lord Christ is coming again on the Last Day. But I also believe that He comes every time a physical judgment is administered on mankind.

Hope this topic doesn't get blocked! It shouldn't, especially with some of the stuff I have read.

Nelg

Heavyduty053 · August 30, 2011

Heavyduty,

I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm and desire to share the message of the Bible with others. It would be wonderful to have ten thousand proclaiming the gospel of Christ from the housetops.

With this present post, you have opened a controversial subject even among the saints. Therefore, you will have individuals who agree with your take on Scripture, and those who disagree with some of your statements. I am one of the latter.

Though I firmly believe in the Second Coming of Christ and that there will be a day of judgment for the entire population of humanity from both past and future, there are some difficulties with the way you have described His coming to judge. Christ has come many times to bring physical judgment on nations or peoples, but these were not His final coming. He was present even at the judgment of Babylon, Jerusalem, Assyria, Persia, Egypt, Germany and many other nations of the past. The Bible even predicts/prophecies these events. And, as you have stated, He will come to judge the world on the last day. Now, my problem is that you have intermingled the passages that refer to the physical judgment with those that apply to the “last day” judgment. To do so misleads the reader.

I am familiar with the Bible and know exactly where these passages are found. The average person does not know the Bible that well and has no idea where to find what you have said. May I suggest that when you write your articles/posts that you site the passages quoted and not make the assumption that the reader knows the Scripture. This will help others in their search for understanding.

Please do not place my comments in the realm of a scoffer or the “debunk er”. That is the last thing that I would want to do. I agree. The Lord Christ is coming again on the Last Day. But I also believe that He comes every time a physical judgment is administered on mankind.

Hope this topic doesn't get blocked! It shouldn't, especially with some of the stuff I have read.

Nelg

I see what you mean i forget that some will want references to see for themselves, thank you for pointing that out to me. And as always all comments are welcome, at least i know you read it and the main message is he is coming for the final time.

Mommyof3boys · August 31, 2011

This post is written to remind all of the impending event that is to come. It will involve all people of this earth and there will be no escaping its moment. Those who know Jesus as the savior of his children will know what i am talking about and the rest will read, scoff, try to debunk it by their misunderstanding or their lack of knowledge by choice.

Jesus said behold when i return i will come like a thief in the middle of the nite, and all who know me and all who believe in me will hear my call. In that moment in the twinkling of an eye all this world will be changed. His return is eminent as set forth by the father to set in motion the cleasning of this earth of its sinful nature. The earth and all its inhabitants who are left here will not have but seven years from that moment to liveand then the end will come. Yes you can be saved during this time but it will be hard you will suffer the some of the bowls of judgement. God set forth this moment in time and it is coming to believers and non believers alike. It will be a joyous time for all who know him and a sorrowful and painful time for all that is left. What i am refering to is the rapture and the time proceeding it. It will be a time when people will want to kill themselves to end the pain but death will escape them. I understand why some has lack of understanding of this because they have never had the desire or even a wish to draw closer to God, but there will be no excuses offered on the day of judgement. Silence will be the order of the moment for the sinful when his last words to you will be " depart from me for i never knew you". Your destiny will be fulfilled according to your choice.

Question:: one morning when you get up and turn on the news and the tv is silent, you look outside and the birds have stopped singing you find out that there are cars all over the road with people missing, planes have crashed because pilots disappeared in flight, friends and neighbors gone, on your way to work you notice busy roads are vacant except for a few who are left and you are still here.....Jesus said when i come, " two will be working one will be taken and one will be left, husband and wife shall be lying in bed one will be taken and one will be left, this is the way it will for the believers and non believers. I can hear the scoffers trying to debunk this already but that is to be expected and is alright. Jesus said my wish is that no one should miss the rapture but it is also declared that many will hold on to this this world and what it has to offer rather than put their faith in him. Narrow is the way and wide is the gate to destruction and many will fall in. Some words of every message will fall on deaf ears and some will lift up and at least remind people what is set in stone and is coming. The ones who know Jesus and put their faith in him to guide our paths can see the signs winding down each day closer to that moment but it should not hinder us because we will not miss his call. All the money in the world will not be worth missing this moment. To God be the glory and may something i write be an inspiration to someone who still don't know you like i do, reach out and touch the readers of DV and show them that you are real and inspire them with understanding so that they might see also............Heavyduty053

Thank you for your post... I agree, Jesus is coming soon and I would surely hate to be left behind.

Heavyduty053 · August 31, 2011

the rapture is false doctrine!

there will be no rapture, there will be a series of DEFINED events and then will mark the beginning of 7 years, but the bible does not define 7 years hevenly time or earthly time, in the bible is says a 1000 years is like 1 day to God, therefore 7 years could be a very long time.

We are not in the end times, stop with the FEAR DOOM GLOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH crap, its over rated and out dated people are gaining knowledge that the things that are happening on Earth are natural and not man made and not God sent as punishment. The news that you do hear about when it comes to evil only seems abundant simply because we have the internet and TV, information gets to more places. All this crap has been going on for ages, this age is no different

so just stop it

false doctrine i don't think so that is what i was talking about truth is falling on deaf ears but you will see one day.

WorkerBee · August 31, 2011

@ Nelg, I just want you to know, I really appreciate your comments not to just this thread but others as well. Heavy, thanks for the post.

Nelg · August 31, 2011

@ Nelg, I just want you to know, I really appreciate your comments not to just this thread but others as well. Heavy, thanks for the post.

Thanks WorkerBee for the encouragement. I like your avatar. Keep seeking truth.

ronny46 · August 31, 2011

Heavy, thanks for the post and The Word. So happy I am a believer. Pitty for those who aren't. I would much rather be a believer and be wrong, than a non-believer and be wrong. It is like this dinar ride, no one knows the day, no one knows the time. Praise God and thank you Jesus. :bow:

easyrider · August 31, 2011

Heavy, thanks for the post and The Word. So happy I am a believer. Pitty for those who aren't. I would much rather be a believer and be wrong, than a non-believer and be wrong. It is like this dinar ride, no one knows the day, no one knows the time. Praise God and thank you Jesus.

amen. Good post heavy.

estewart · August 31, 2011

Oh, my God! We're goina get Nuked!

ATHIM · August 31, 2011

"IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE" you will be dead and that will be the same as the second coming of the Lord.

If you believe that you will be ruptured before the tribulation you are wrong! This is a false doctrine which will enslave many to the beast. Christ will return after the tribulation.

Those who long to die, refers to those in Hades who long for the death of the soul but it does not come to them because the soul does not die.

"If you do not eat My flesh and drink My blood you have no life in you." Here is the deeper mystery.

ARE WE SPIRITUALLY ALIVE AT ALL?

Edited August 31, 2011 by ATHIM

estewart · August 31, 2011

It isn't a question of whether we are spiriatually alive, or not, it is a question of whether we are spiritually blinded by beliefs laid on us to enslave us, body, mind and soul.

imgesing · August 31, 2011

This post is written to remind all of the impending event that is to come. It will involve all people of this earth and there will be no escaping its moment. Those who know Jesus as the savior of his children will know what i am talking about and the rest will read, scoff, try to debunk it by their misunderstanding or their lack of knowledge by choice.

Jesus said behold when i return i will come like a thief in the middle of the nite, and all who know me and all who believe in me will hear my call. In that moment in the twinkling of an eye all this world will be changed. His return is eminent as set forth by the father to set in motion the cleasning of this earth of its sinful nature. The earth and all its inhabitants who are left here will not have but seven years from that moment to liveand then the end will come. Yes you can be saved during this time but it will be hard you will suffer the some of the bowls of judgement. God set forth this moment in time and it is coming to believers and non believers alike. It will be a joyous time for all who know him and a sorrowful and painful time for all that is left. What i am refering to is the rapture and the time proceeding it. It will be a time when people will want to kill themselves to end the pain but death will escape them. I understand why some has lack of understanding of this because they have never had the desire or even a wish to draw closer to God, but there will be no excuses offered on the day of judgement. Silence will be the order of the moment for the sinful when his last words to you will be " depart from me for i never knew you". Your destiny will be fulfilled according to your choice.

Question:: one morning when you get up and turn on the news and the tv is silent, you look outside and the birds have stopped singing you find out that there are cars all over the road with people missing, planes have crashed because pilots disappeared in flight, friends and neighbors gone, on your way to work you notice busy roads are vacant except for a few who are left and you are still here.....Jesus said when i come, " two will be working one will be taken and one will be left, husband and wife shall be lying in bed one will be taken and one will be left, this is the way it will for the believers and non believers. I can hear the scoffers trying to debunk this already but that is to be expected and is alright. Jesus said my wish is that no one should miss the rapture but it is also declared that many will hold on to this this world and what it has to offer rather than put their faith in him. Narrow is the way and wide is the gate to destruction and many will fall in. Some words of every message will fall on deaf ears and some will lift up and at least remind people what is set in stone and is coming. The ones who know Jesus and put their faith in him to guide our paths can see the signs winding down each day closer to that moment but it should not hinder us because we will not miss his call. All the money in the world will not be worth missing this moment. To God be the glory and may something i write be an inspiration to someone who still don't know you like i do, reach out and touch the readers of DV and show them that you are real and inspire them with understanding so that they might see also............Heavyduty053

Do you think G-d rules with fear of wrath? Interesting

iceni · August 31, 2011

Folks...as you can tell, this is my first post...having joined this forum just a few days ago in search of data regarding the anticipated RV event.

However, I couldn't resist commenting on Heavy Duty's post and responses by oatman and Aqua Dude.

First of all, let me clarify a thing or two before commenting on Heavy Duty's post.

I am a student of the Bible as well as biblical and secular history. A proper understanding of biblical history is a must to properly understand prophesies.

The field of archeological studies also help to support historical events.

Most Christians do not know biblical history much less secular history and will generally swallow whatever is preached or taught in churches by so-called seminary educated ministers.

It is much like our secular educational system...a dumbing down of students where they are only taught what the power brokers have decided for them to be taught.

A population that is less informed and less inspired to understanding truth is much easier to control.

Many religious systems are much the same.

Most modern churches have been deceived with many (denominational) doctrines and beliefs that have no scriptural foundation. The rapture theory is just one of them.

Heavy Duty, with all due respect, and I say this with sincerity. I know where you are coming from in your belief of this doctrine.

I was raised in a church environment that taught this theory and I really bought into it until I was led to do a full search of scripture and church history to determine if this doctrine had validity. Like so many other church and/or denominational doctrines it has absolutely no biblical foundation.

Oatman and Aqua Dude, I appreciate your comments and do hope that you both have done your homework in order to come to your conclusions and statements.

Knowing and understanding are 2 different things. We generally know something by hearing or reading, but understanding is the result of studying.

That is why God's Law-Word admonishes us in 2 Tim. 2:15 to "Study to show thyself approved............"

There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called secret rapture is a hoax. Much like the eternal BBQ pit called Hell.

However, that is another topic and a vast one at that.

As for the secret rapture, it is something different from the true biblical event referred to as “the catching away, resurrection, coming of Jesus, second coming, return of Jesus, end of the world, or day of Christ.” The rapture theory says Jesus will return suddenly at any moment and secretly take away the Christians leaving behind everyone else to wonder what happened to them. I don’t know where you would find a scriptural basis for such doctrine. It makes a good story line for a novel, but is not scriptural. The bible very plainly speaks of the return of Jesus but never mentions it will be secret in ANY way, that’s why they found it necessary to SPLIT the coming into two separate parts, which is why I call it “Doctrinal Gymnastics”.

In Matthew 24:3 the apostles ask Jesus, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus answering them speaks of different things and then in verse 29 He answers their question about his return.

29. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, (these events could hardly be kept secret) and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30. And then shall appear (for everyone to see) the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see (no secret) the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect (this is the catching away) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” This is a description of the return of Jesus spoken by Jesus himself. He spoke very plainly and easy to understand. His return will not be a secret. What would the tribes of the earth in verse 30 be mourning about if they didn’t know what had happened–that Jesus had returned and they missed it.

ALL over the world today there is an awakening to the near return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a growing interest in the signs of the times. As Bible believing Christians we rejoice at this phenomenon, yet sad to say, in almost every case the doctrine of the Lord’s return has been mixed in with the teaching that He will return first secretly and ‘rapture’ or take away His Church. Although Church History will show that such a theory has only come into prominence over the last one hundred and fifty years, today it is spreading like wildfire, in books, and even films, and accounts for the teaching in 90% of Full Gospel and Fundamentalist Churches and Bible Colleges, world-wide. This being the case it is our duty as students of God’s prophetic Word to examine this doctrine of the Secret Rapture, and ask ourselves -’Is it Scriptural?’

When we remember that the Secret Rapture theory was virtually unheard of and untaught until around 1830, it is essential to examine its origins first. Such a teaching was unknown to the early Church Fathers e.g. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who were convinced that the Christian Church would pass through great tribulation at the hands of the antichrist system before the return of the Lord. Furthermore the Rapture theory was not taught by the great stalwarts of the Reformed Faith - Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer or even by the Wesley brothers in the 18th Century. Whence came this teaching, and where did this novel idea arise?

At the time of the Reformation, the first Protestants widely believed and taught that the Papacy was antichrist, and the Roman Church the Harlot System of Revelation 17. It therefore became necessary for certain Romish theologians to take the pressure off the Pope by inventing a new school of prophetic interpretation now known as Futurism. It was a Jesuit priest named Ribera (1537-1591) who first taught that the events prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation would not be fulfilled until three and a half years at the end of the age when an individual world dictator called Anti-Christ would arise. Thus Ribera laid the foundation of a system of prophetic interpretation of which the Secret Rapture has now become an integral part.

Nevertheless in spite of the efforts of false prophets like Ribera and Cardinal Bellarmine it was not for another two and a half centuries that the Jesuit fables began to gain acceptance by Evangelical Christians. In the early 19th Century Futurism entered the bloodstream of Protestant prophetic teaching by three main roads:

(a) A Chilean Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled ‘The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty’, and in its pages taught the novel notion that Christ returns not once, but twice, and at the ‘first stage’ of His return He ‘raptures‘ His Church so they can escape the reign of the ‘future antichrist‘. In order to avoid any taint of Romanism, Lacunza published his book under the assumed name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza’s book found its way to the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there in 1826 Dr Maitland, the Archbishop’s librarian came upon it and read it and soon after began to issue a series of parmphlets giving the Jesuit, Futurist view of prophecy. The idea soon found acceptance in the Anglo-Catholic Ritualist movement in the National Church of England, and soon it tainted the very heart of Protestantism.

(b ) The Secret Rapture doctrine was given a second door of entrance at this time by the ministry of one, Edward Irving, founder of the so-called ‘Catholic Apostolic Church’. It was in Irving’s London church, in 1830, that a young girl named Margaret McDonald gave an ecstatic prophecy in which she claimed there would be a special secret coming of the Lord to ‘rapture’ those awaiting His return. From then until his death in 1834 Irving devoted his considerable talent as a preacher to spreading the theory of the ’secret rapture’.

(c ) However, it was necessary for Jesuitry to have a third door of entrance to the Reformed fold and this they gained via a sincere Christian, J. N. Darby, generally regarded as the founder of the ‘Brethren’. As an Anglican curate Darby attended a number of mysteriously organized meetings on Bible Prophecy at Powerscourt in Ireland, and at these gatherings he learned about the ’secret rapture’. He carried the teaching into the Brethren and hence into the heart of Evangelicalism. With a new veneer of being scriptural the teaching spread and was later popularized in the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible.

So today the three measures of Roman leaven have corrupted the Prophetic teaching of almost all the Fundamentalist world. Well might we say of the ’secret rapture’, can any good thing come out of Rome?

While the Romanist origin of any doctrine is always sufficient to make it suspect, our Final court of appeal must be to the Holy Scriptures, and so we find it necessary to examine some of the favorite ‘Proof Texts’ which are quoted by the Rapturists and see just what they really teach.

Our blessed Lord said: ‘But know this, that if the good man of the house, had known in what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not have suffered the house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not your Lord will corne.’ Matt. 24:43-44; Luke 12:39-40.

The Rapturists tell us that this shows the secret nature of the Lord’s ‘coming for’ the saints, but does it? The only secrecy implied in the texts is in relation to the day and hour of Christ’s coming and there is nothing to indicate that the coming itself is a secret. In fact we are told:

‘The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of an Archangel and the TRUMP of God.’ I Thess. 4:16. Nothing quiet about that, is there?

Again they refer us to the words: ‘I will come on thee as a thief in the night and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.’ Rev. 3:3.

Or again: ‘Behold I come as a thief, blessed is he that watcheth.’ Rev. 16:15.

However, in both instances just quoted, the secrecy is in connection with the timing not the nature of the event, and it is exactly the same in the other ‘thief text‘.

‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night’ II Peter 3:10

Here again it is the element of surprise that leads to the use of the thief as a symbol. Peter himself finishes this very same ‘thief text’ by saying that at the time of the Lord’s coming:

‘The heavens shall pass away with a GREAT NOISE’

Not much secrecy about that is there? After all did not Paul tell his readers:

‘But ye brethren ARE NOT in darkness that, that day shall overtake you as a thief.’ I Thess. 5:4.

You see, as Christians, they were studying the signs of the times as we should be doing and were ready for Christ’s return. He will only come as a thief for those who are not prepared for Him.

Furthermore the very concept of a ‘thief’ must be called into question for, at the time when our Lord and the Apostles spoke, a thief was much more likely to be a bandit or leader of a gang of robbers who swept down on his victims in swift, sudden, but open and daring raids, and he was not a sneak thief or burglar, as we have today.

The Rapturists would have us believe that the Lord comes secretly to rescue His people before what they call ‘the great tribulation’ or time of trouble begins. To support this idea they quote the Lord Jesus as saying: ‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be … then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken, the other left. Watch therefore for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ Matt. 24:37-42.

How often we have heard this text used to challenge sinners to come to Christ and of the terrible things that will happen when their Christian friends and relatives have been ‘raptured’. Let us not take the text from its context to make it a pretext. The clear setting and key to the understanding of the verse is: ‘As it was in the days of Noah’, and we all know that then it was the wicked who were taken away and the righteous left to inherit a purified earth. Such a concept of the removal of the wicked is in keeping with the clear teaching given by our Lord in two of His Kingdom Parables. In that of the Wheat and the Tares, we are told that the harvest is the end of the age, when the angels will gather out of the kingdom, the tares, which represent the wicked or those who offend. Again in the same thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we find the Parable of the Dragnet. In its symbolism it is the bad or evil ones who are removed out of the Kingdom for Jesus says:

‘So shall it be at the end of the world (age), the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just.’ Matt. 13:49.

If a third witness were needed the Old Testament prophet Isaiah tells us:

‘Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.’

Let me ask you to consider very carefully just who the Lord will ‘rapture’ or remove. Surely it is His intention to give this earth into the possession of the righteous as He said in His Sermon on the Mount. Did not our Lord pray in John 17: 15:

‘I pray NOT that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil’?

Surely our Lord promised to be with us not until the ’secret rapture’ but ‘to the end of the age.’

Another favorite proof text of the Rapturists is Jude v 14:

‘Behold the Lord cometh, with ten thousands of His Saints.’

Then by coupling this to first Thessalonians 4:16-17 where we are told that the saints will be ‘caught up together … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ they glibly tell us that Christ comes first for His saints, and that He returns with the saints, after either three and a half or seven years - a period of time which they cannot agree on.

Once again we find that all is not as simple as they would have us believe. It is indeed true that at His Coming, the dead in Christ together with the living believers will be translated or caught up to meet the Lord in the air, but there is no Scripture to even suggest that He takes them to heaven where they remain for a period of time, be it long or short, and then return with Him. Far from it, they meet the Lord in the air as His entourage or glory train, as earthly courtiers would go out to greet their King, as He is on His way back to earth where His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives as the disciples were told at the time of His Ascension. So let us look at the verse in Jude which refers to coming ‘with the Saints’. The word translated ’saints’ in our Bible comes from a Greek word HAGIOUS, which means Holy. Since Christ Himself taught that:

‘The Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the Holy (HAGIOUS) angels with Him. Matt. 25:31 It seems more than likely that the word translated saints in Jude refers to angels. Since the verse referred to in Jude speaks of Christ returning with His saints to execute judgement we would do well to examine another similar verse of scripture which tells us the same thing:

‘The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them who know not God, and obey not the Gospel.’ II Thess. 1:7-8.

It seems we need not the Rapturists’ theories, for Scripture interprets itself and one verse can often throw light upon another. Let us also remember that the expression ‘ten thousands of His Saints’ is not only in Jude but in Deuteronomy 33:2:

‘The Lord came from Sinai … with ten thousands of His saints.’

There can therefore be no doubt that these ’saints’ were angels, a fact attested to by Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and the extra-canonical Book of Enoch. So much for coming ‘for’ and ‘with’ the saints.

Let us look again briefly at I Thess. 4 for here we are clearly told that at the moment the living saints are caught up to meet the Lord the righteous dead are also resurrected. Now if the Futurists and Rapturists are correct and there is indeed a time gap before the Lord returns, or the Day of the Lord occurs, there is surely a grave discrepancy for Martha believed that her brother Lazarus would: ‘rise again in the Resurrection at the last day.’ John 11:24. Job, the Old Testament saint also taught that the dead would not rise until ‘the heavens be no more’ Job 14:10-12 or ‘the latter day’ Job 19:25-27.

The order of events in I Thess. 4:16-17 clearly shows what happens at the last day or Day of the Lord is:

a ) The trump of God sounds;

b ) The dead in Christ are raised:

c ) The living saints are translated (not ‘raptured’).

There certainly does not seem to be room left here for a time gap of any length. In spite of this clear sequence of events, in their determination to prove otherwise, the Rapturists will still defend their mistaken concept of a coming in two stages, by appealing to the distinction between the two Greek words used, in connection with the coming. These words are Parousia, which they contend is coming first to rapture the believers and Apokalupsis which they say is open, visible coming back with the saints after a lapse of time. In reality there are actually six Greek words used in connection with the return of the Lord. For the sake of simplicity we shall list these words, with their English rendering and go on to show that the inspired writers of the New Testament used them interchangeably to describe not two distinct and separate comings but one event.

1. Parousia - This word emphasises the physical or actual personal presence of the one who comes e.g. ‘Be patient unto the COMING (in person) of the Lord.’ James 5:7.

2. Apokalupsis - This word stresses the ‘revealing’ or unveiling of the one who comes e.g. ‘The Lord shall be REVEALED from Heaven.’ II Thess. 1:7.

3. Epiphaneia - This word is used in the sense of the Glory or Majesty that will be manifested as Christ returns e.g. ‘The APPEARING of our Lord Jesus.’ I Tim. 6:14.

4. Heko - This word is used to emphasise the idea of arrival at a certain point or place e.g. ‘Hold fast till I COME (to you).’ Rev. 2:25.

5. Erchomai - This word is used to imply the actual act or event of coming e.g. ‘Occupy till I COME (make the journey).’ Luke 19: 13.

6. Phaneroo - This word means to render apparent e.g. ‘When He shall APPEAR we shall be like Him’ I John 32.

Out of these six words, the one most used is Parousia, but never in the sense of anything that is secret. Paul frequently used this word to refer to the physical presence of himself and others at various locations e.g. he spoke of the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Titus to him from Corinth, II Cor. 7:6, and again in the same Epistle the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Stephanas etc. I Cor. 16:17. Again when writing to the saints at Philippi, Paul said that he would be ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) to visit them. Furthermore Paul spoke of the ‘Coming (PAROUSIA) of the Lord and our gathering together to Him.’ II Thess. 2 as an event seen by all after the appearance of antichrist, not in secret before the appearance of antichrist.

Not only Paul but Peter also used these words PAROUSIA and APOKALUPSIS, and actually used them to refer to the same event, the open manifest, coming again of the Lord Jesus. To see this compare I Peter 1:13 to II Peter 3. To confirm that the two words are interchangeable, we find that Matthew in his Gospel referring to the last days says:

‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming (PAROUSIA) of the Son of Man be.’ Matt. 24:37.

Yet Luke referring to the same event in his Gospel writes:

‘As it was in the days of Noah … even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed (APOKALUPSIS).’ Luke 17:26-30.

Surely this is proof if it is still required that the idea of two comings is at best a nonsense and at worst a deliberate deception. Before leaving this issue we should also say that the other Greek words listed previously can also be used interchangeably, although implying various shades or degrees of meaning.

EPIPHANEIA is used to refer to the Lord returning to destroy antichrist: ‘with the brightness of His COMING.’ II Thess. 2:8.

Certainly nothing secret about that event. PHANEROO can be found in I Peter 5:4.

‘When the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.’

Without doubt the crowning glory of the saints at the Lord’s return will be open and for all to see.

ERCHOMAI and HEKO are actually used in the same sentence to describe the same event:

‘For yet a little while and He that shall come (ERCHOMAI) will come (HEKO) and will not tarry.’ Hebrews 10:37.

In the light of these and many other similar verses it is apparent that the original Greek text confounds and refutes the Secret Rapture teaching rather than confirming and sustaining it.

CAN CHRIST COME BACK AT ANY MOMENT?

Frequently coupled with the Secret Rapture doctrine is the equally misguided notion that Christ can come back at any moment, even tonight, as we so often hear well-meaning Evangelists proclaim. Whilst we do not doubt the Lord’s ability, we do believe that God is the author not of confusion, but of a great plan for the ages. This being the case, and although we are well aware that no man knows the exact day and hour of Christ’s return, it is equally certain that a number of prophecies yet await their complete fulfillment and that not until we witness these things come to pass, can we expect the Lord at any moment. It was this very doctrine which had come into the Church at Thessalonica and made it necessary for Paul to write:

‘Now we beseech you brethren by (concerning) the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by (concerning) our gathering together unto Him that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand (at any moment), let no man deceive you, for that day shall not come except there come, a falling away first and the Man of Sin be revealed.’ II Thess. 2:13.

Now those who believe in the Secret Rapture and that Christ can come at any moment say He will gather the believers before antichrist appears yet the Scripture says the direct opposite.

Again like so much of their teaching it is confusion, confounded, and Scripture stood upon its head.

IN CONCLUSION:

The unscriptural nature of the Secret Rapture doctrine has, instead of preparing God’s people to face the increasingly difficult days ahead, as tribulation intensifies, this doctrine has deluded millions of Christians into a false notion of escapism, and instead of obeying the Lord’s command to resist evil and occupy until He comes, they have been made so Rapture-minded that they no longer even resist the evil, believing not that they will defeat it, but instead be rescued from it.

So who is blind as to what the Word really teaches concerning what is truth.

isa. 42:18-20

The rapture theory is only one of many false doctrines that are being exposed by the truth from God's Law-Word.

God promised to lift the blindness from His people at the end of the age and we are certainly witnessing that this is indeed happening.

It is not my intent to cause conflict in stating truths but unfortunately many prefer believing lies because its more comfortable and appeasing to our carnal nature.

I pray that the explanations regarding the time of harvest (of the tares) causes many to better understand scriptural truths rather than man's traditions.

ice

iceni · August 31, 2011

Do you think G-d rules with fear of wrath? Interesting

imgesing...good question.

What do you think?

Is God, the Creator of all things, a God of Love for His creation or just for a few of those souls who manage to hear, believe and accept Him.

Does it make sense to you that this God of Love would torture those who didn't accept Him to an eternal BBQ pit that the church world believes will happen?

Or is it possible that our Creator has a plan and purpose to bring about total restoration of His Creation?

It is a huge subject to discuss and one that most churches won't even consider because they are locked in with their false doctrines and dare not debate it.

ice

estewart · August 31, 2011

@ice

Whoa! I am in awe. Never thought I would ever be impressed by anyone thumping the Bible, so to speak. Pretty impressive, indeed. Prolly hurt a few poor peep's feelings, here, though. You will likely experience a strong back lash. So, gird yourself.

I am interested in the extent of your studies, ice. Have you studied about Paul? I should maybe mention I have a real respect for authentic words of Jesus (the so called Lord's Prayer isn't among them), but little for Paul. In my view, the Christian church became utterly corrupted at the onset, and by Paul.

Jesus appointed a certain one of his disciples to lead the church into the future, and as a kind of mystical-minded joke named the person, Peter. Petros. Which means, rock. This in turn meant, FOUNDATION. Peter was supposed to be the foundation of the church. But another man trumped him. And that man's name was Saul. This is the same man who made the incredible claim that over 500 people witnessed the risen Christ at the same time, at a gathering. Paul wasn't there. He was supposedly but simply reporting on the event. Passing it on in passing. Just a side remark. (Sorry I don't recall the chapter and verse.). With that many witnesses one would think that the most incredible event of all time and history would have been reported also by others, considering just how many there was present. All through his writings he sets the tone for modern day Evangelists' style of preaching, like the "fundamental" exaggerated performances. It's like Paul sanctified it all.

Have you studied about Paul and how he had been a Roman soldier bent on persecution of Christians? Are you aware of the so-called, Secret Religion of the Roman Soldiers? That region was called, Mithraism. And one of the main features of this religion concerned the sending of a goat out in the desert to suffer and die as a sacrifice for the expiation of the sins committed that year by the Roman soldiers. I am going to claim here (though this is actually not my own idea) that what Paul mainly did was he took his Mithra religion and translated it into Christianity with the idea that Christ suffered and died on the cross for the ridding of sins of those that "believe" in him. All Paul's idea! He made it up. I am not aware that Jesus said anything about anything such matter as that, so modern Christianity is misnamed. It should be called, Paulinism. He mostly invented it.

One of the main problems of modern Christianity is that it does not have a clue in consideration of metaphors.

Jesus was asked, "Why do you speak in parables." He said, to paraphrase it, "It is because you aren't ready to hear the straight dope. You have not spiritually matured enough, yet." And he indicated that there were incredible things he could tell, but none of it would be understood. So he makes a point to keep things simple by using parables, which are but symbolic stories. And those parables are just one type of symbology among many others in the Bible. But modern Christians, it seems, are no more mature than they were back at the start as they seem to have no clue as to the use of symbols, and, thus, dramatically, fanatically, take ideas and things at their face value.

Just as our governments of the world have become corrupted, so have religions. I sometimes watch the Sunday preachers on TV, in amazement. They are all very much alike. I believe they study each other. Copy each other's moves. I am astounded how anyone could accept any of that malarkey. Basically, it is all a scam business and art to suck wealth out of poor peoples pockets, and it hinges on what was done in the past by powerful people inventing ridged doctrines and beliefs for the sake of enslaving a population's mind body and soul. This is spiritual enslavement. To get really dramatic, here, it is like it's the work of the Devil himself. But the believers just close their minds to the idea of learning and evolving on their own power and initiative and become spiritually stuck as a result. Stopped. In a sense, dead. See? If one is not actively living one's life it is the same as being dead.

The immediate foregoing is a point from a series of books I am working on which will be called, the GUIDE Book. It is a set of books concerning spiritual guidance, and alternate Dimensions of Consciousness, but I expect them to be seriously attacked by the fundamentalist community. Their subtitle, is, A Metaphorical Psychology Series. In an early draft stage they were asked for by the Professor of Psychology at the University of Duquesne in Pittsburgh for use as text books. But they were not developed enough for me feel I could let them go yet.

You mentioned about how Jesus emphasized the idea that one should remain in a state of expectation, in my terms. My books present the understanding that one needs to expect the unexpected. The idea is that such an attitude keeps one from developing a closed mind. It helps to keep one alive, alert. On one's toes. It is a means for enabling a quality of spiritual vitality to ever be present. It allows Life Force to be able to enter the body and the mind. And, tell me, WHAT MODERN RELIGION TEACHES ANYTHING LIKE THIS? None do. At least, as far as I know. I say, they all fail. They actually oppose congregation members from doing doing anything but BELIEVING what they are told to believe. No inquiry such as you are doing is permitted. No investigation. It's like such questioning is the work of the Devil, himself, at least this is the idea stemming from the modern pulpit, or the TV screen.

We live in a truly Dark Age.

ATHIM · August 31, 2011

It isn't a question of whether we are spiriatually alive, or not, it is a question of whether we are spiritually blinded by beliefs laid on us to enslave us, body, mind and soul.

Whether we are spiritually alive or not is the only question really worth asking with our limited time.

Sin is the only thing that truly enslaves, loving God and being loved back is liberating, fullfilling, challenging and basically the missing part of our fallen nature.

God gave us free will and we give it back to Him freely, not as blinded slaves but as enlightened beings so enlightened by the truth of God's revelation.

You are the servant of whatever has mastered you.

Nice post iceni

Heavyduty053 · August 31, 2011

Folks...as you can tell, this is my first post...having joined this forum just a few days ago in search of data regarding the anticipated RV event.

However, I couldn't resist commenting on Heavy Duty's post and responses by oatman and Aqua Dude.

First of all, let me clarify a thing or two before commenting on Heavy Duty's post.

I am a student of the Bible as well as biblical and secular history. A proper understanding of biblical history is a must to properly understand prophesies.

The field of archeological studies also help to support historical events.

Most Christians do not know biblical history much less secular history and will generally swallow whatever is preached or taught in churches by so-called seminary educated ministers.

It is much like our secular educational system...a dumbing down of students where they are only taught what the power brokers have decided for them to be taught.

A population that is less informed and less inspired to understanding truth is much easier to control.

Many religious systems are much the same.

Most modern churches have been deceived with many (denominational) doctrines and beliefs that have no scriptural foundation. The rapture theory is just one of them.

Heavy Duty, with all due respect, and I say this with sincerity. I know where you are coming from in your belief of this doctrine.

I was raised in a church environment that taught this theory and I really bought into it until I was led to do a full search of scripture and church history to determine if this doctrine had validity. Like so many other church and/or denominational doctrines it has absolutely no biblical foundation.

Oatman and Aqua Dude, I appreciate your comments and do hope that you both have done your homework in order to come to your conclusions and statements.

Knowing and understanding are 2 different things. We generally know something by hearing or reading, but understanding is the result of studying.

That is why God's Law-Word admonishes us in 2 Tim. 2:15 to "Study to show thyself approved............"

There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called secret rapture is a hoax. Much like the eternal BBQ pit called Hell.

However, that is another topic and a vast one at that.

As for the secret rapture, it is something different from the true biblical event referred to as “the catching away, resurrection, coming of Jesus, second coming, return of Jesus, end of the world, or day of Christ.” The rapture theory says Jesus will return suddenly at any moment and secretly take away the Christians leaving behind everyone else to wonder what happened to them. I don’t know where you would find a scriptural basis for such doctrine. It makes a good story line for a novel, but is not scriptural. The bible very plainly speaks of the return of Jesus but never mentions it will be secret in ANY way, that’s why they found it necessary to SPLIT the coming into two separate parts, which is why I call it “Doctrinal Gymnastics”.

In Matthew 24:3 the apostles ask Jesus, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus answering them speaks of different things and then in verse 29 He answers their question about his return.

29. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, (these events could hardly be kept secret) and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30. And then shall appear (for everyone to see) the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see (no secret) the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect (this is the catching away) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” This is a description of the return of Jesus spoken by Jesus himself. He spoke very plainly and easy to understand. His return will not be a secret. What would the tribes of the earth in verse 30 be mourning about if they didn’t know what had happened–that Jesus had returned and they missed it.

ALL over the world today there is an awakening to the near return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a growing interest in the signs of the times. As Bible believing Christians we rejoice at this phenomenon, yet sad to say, in almost every case the doctrine of the Lord’s return has been mixed in with the teaching that He will return first secretly and ‘rapture’ or take away His Church. Although Church History will show that such a theory has only come into prominence over the last one hundred and fifty years, today it is spreading like wildfire, in books, and even films, and accounts for the teaching in 90% of Full Gospel and Fundamentalist Churches and Bible Colleges, world-wide. This being the case it is our duty as students of God’s prophetic Word to examine this doctrine of the Secret Rapture, and ask ourselves -’Is it Scriptural?’

When we remember that the Secret Rapture theory was virtually unheard of and untaught until around 1830, it is essential to examine its origins first. Such a teaching was unknown to the early Church Fathers e.g. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who were convinced that the Christian Church would pass through great tribulation at the hands of the antichrist system before the return of the Lord. Furthermore the Rapture theory was not taught by the great stalwarts of the Reformed Faith - Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer or even by the Wesley brothers in the 18th Century. Whence came this teaching, and where did this novel idea arise?

At the time of the Reformation, the first Protestants widely believed and taught that the Papacy was antichrist, and the Roman Church the Harlot System of Revelation 17. It therefore became necessary for certain Romish theologians to take the pressure off the Pope by inventing a new school of prophetic interpretation now known as Futurism. It was a Jesuit priest named Ribera (1537-1591) who first taught that the events prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation would not be fulfilled until three and a half years at the end of the age when an individual world dictator called Anti-Christ would arise. Thus Ribera laid the foundation of a system of prophetic interpretation of which the Secret Rapture has now become an integral part.

Nevertheless in spite of the efforts of false prophets like Ribera and Cardinal Bellarmine it was not for another two and a half centuries that the Jesuit fables began to gain acceptance by Evangelical Christians. In the early 19th Century Futurism entered the bloodstream of Protestant prophetic teaching by three main roads:

(a) A Chilean Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled ‘The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty’, and in its pages taught the novel notion that Christ returns not once, but twice, and at the ‘first stage’ of His return He ‘raptures‘ His Church so they can escape the reign of the ‘future antichrist‘. In order to avoid any taint of Romanism, Lacunza published his book under the assumed name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza’s book found its way to the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there in 1826 Dr Maitland, the Archbishop’s librarian came upon it and read it and soon after began to issue a series of parmphlets giving the Jesuit, Futurist view of prophecy. The idea soon found acceptance in the Anglo-Catholic Ritualist movement in the National Church of England, and soon it tainted the very heart of Protestantism.

(b ) The Secret Rapture doctrine was given a second door of entrance at this time by the ministry of one, Edward Irving, founder of the so-called ‘Catholic Apostolic Church’. It was in Irving’s London church, in 1830, that a young girl named Margaret McDonald gave an ecstatic prophecy in which she claimed there would be a special secret coming of the Lord to ‘rapture’ those awaiting His return. From then until his death in 1834 Irving devoted his considerable talent as a preacher to spreading the theory of the ’secret rapture’.

(c ) However, it was necessary for Jesuitry to have a third door of entrance to the Reformed fold and this they gained via a sincere Christian, J. N. Darby, generally regarded as the founder of the ‘Brethren’. As an Anglican curate Darby attended a number of mysteriously organized meetings on Bible Prophecy at Powerscourt in Ireland, and at these gatherings he learned about the ’secret rapture’. He carried the teaching into the Brethren and hence into the heart of Evangelicalism. With a new veneer of being scriptural the teaching spread and was later popularized in the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible.

So today the three measures of Roman leaven have corrupted the Prophetic teaching of almost all the Fundamentalist world. Well might we say of the ’secret rapture’, can any good thing come out of Rome?

While the Romanist origin of any doctrine is always sufficient to make it suspect, our Final court of appeal must be to the Holy Scriptures, and so we find it necessary to examine some of the favorite ‘Proof Texts’ which are quoted by the Rapturists and see just what they really teach.

Our blessed Lord said: ‘But know this, that if the good man of the house, had known in what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not have suffered the house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not your Lord will corne.’ Matt. 24:43-44; Luke 12:39-40.

The Rapturists tell us that this shows the secret nature of the Lord’s ‘coming for’ the saints, but does it? The only secrecy implied in the texts is in relation to the day and hour of Christ’s coming and there is nothing to indicate that the coming itself is a secret. In fact we are told:

‘The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of an Archangel and the TRUMP of God.’ I Thess. 4:16. Nothing quiet about that, is there?

Again they refer us to the words: ‘I will come on thee as a thief in the night and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.’ Rev. 3:3.

Or again: ‘Behold I come as a thief, blessed is he that watcheth.’ Rev. 16:15.

However, in both instances just quoted, the secrecy is in connection with the timing not the nature of the event, and it is exactly the same in the other ‘thief text‘.

‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night’ II Peter 3:10

Here again it is the element of surprise that leads to the use of the thief as a symbol. Peter himself finishes this very same ‘thief text’ by saying that at the time of the Lord’s coming:

‘The heavens shall pass away with a GREAT NOISE’

Not much secrecy about that is there? After all did not Paul tell his readers:

‘But ye brethren ARE NOT in darkness that, that day shall overtake you as a thief.’ I Thess. 5:4.

You see, as Christians, they were studying the signs of the times as we should be doing and were ready for Christ’s return. He will only come as a thief for those who are not prepared for Him.

Furthermore the very concept of a ‘thief’ must be called into question for, at the time when our Lord and the Apostles spoke, a thief was much more likely to be a bandit or leader of a gang of robbers who swept down on his victims in swift, sudden, but open and daring raids, and he was not a sneak thief or burglar, as we have today.

The Rapturists would have us believe that the Lord comes secretly to rescue His people before what they call ‘the great tribulation’ or time of trouble begins. To support this idea they quote the Lord Jesus as saying: ‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be … then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken, the other left. Watch therefore for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ Matt. 24:37-42.

How often we have heard this text used to challenge sinners to come to Christ and of the terrible things that will happen when their Christian friends and relatives have been ‘raptured’. Let us not take the text from its context to make it a pretext. The clear setting and key to the understanding of the verse is: ‘As it was in the days of Noah’, and we all know that then it was the wicked who were taken away and the righteous left to inherit a purified earth. Such a concept of the removal of the wicked is in keeping with the clear teaching given by our Lord in two of His Kingdom Parables. In that of the Wheat and the Tares, we are told that the harvest is the end of the age, when the angels will gather out of the kingdom, the tares, which represent the wicked or those who offend. Again in the same thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we find the Parable of the Dragnet. In its symbolism it is the bad or evil ones who are removed out of the Kingdom for Jesus says:

‘So shall it be at the end of the world (age), the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just.’ Matt. 13:49.

If a third witness were needed the Old Testament prophet Isaiah tells us:

‘Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.’

Let me ask you to consider very carefully just who the Lord will ‘rapture’ or remove. Surely it is His intention to give this earth into the possession of the righteous as He said in His Sermon on the Mount. Did not our Lord pray in John 17: 15:

‘I pray NOT that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil’?

Surely our Lord promised to be with us not until the ’secret rapture’ but ‘to the end of the age.’

Another favorite proof text of the Rapturists is Jude v 14:

‘Behold the Lord cometh, with ten thousands of His Saints.’

Then by coupling this to first Thessalonians 4:16-17 where we are told that the saints will be ‘caught up together … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ they glibly tell us that Christ comes first for His saints, and that He returns with the saints, after either three and a half or seven years - a period of time which they cannot agree on.

Once again we find that all is not as simple as they would have us believe. It is indeed true that at His Coming, the dead in Christ together with the living believers will be translated or caught up to meet the Lord in the air, but there is no Scripture to even suggest that He takes them to heaven where they remain for a period of time, be it long or short, and then return with Him. Far from it, they meet the Lord in the air as His entourage or glory train, as earthly courtiers would go out to greet their King, as He is on His way back to earth where His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives as the disciples were told at the time of His Ascension. So let us look at the verse in Jude which refers to coming ‘with the Saints’. The word translated ’saints’ in our Bible comes from a Greek word HAGIOUS, which means Holy. Since Christ Himself taught that:

‘The Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the Holy (HAGIOUS) angels with Him. Matt. 25:31 It seems more than likely that the word translated saints in Jude refers to angels. Since the verse referred to in Jude speaks of Christ returning with His saints to execute judgement we would do well to examine another similar verse of scripture which tells us the same thing:

‘The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them who know not God, and obey not the Gospel.’ II Thess. 1:7-8.

It seems we need not the Rapturists’ theories, for Scripture interprets itself and one verse can often throw light upon another. Let us also remember that the expression ‘ten thousands of His Saints’ is not only in Jude but in Deuteronomy 33:2:

‘The Lord came from Sinai … with ten thousands of His saints.’

There can therefore be no doubt that these ’saints’ were angels, a fact attested to by Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and the extra-canonical Book of Enoch. So much for coming ‘for’ and ‘with’ the saints.

Let us look again briefly at I Thess. 4 for here we are clearly told that at the moment the living saints are caught up to meet the Lord the righteous dead are also resurrected. Now if the Futurists and Rapturists are correct and there is indeed a time gap before the Lord returns, or the Day of the Lord occurs, there is surely a grave discrepancy for Martha believed that her brother Lazarus would: ‘rise again in the Resurrection at the last day.’ John 11:24. Job, the Old Testament saint also taught that the dead would not rise until ‘the heavens be no more’ Job 14:10-12 or ‘the latter day’ Job 19:25-27.

The order of events in I Thess. 4:16-17 clearly shows what happens at the last day or Day of the Lord is:

a ) The trump of God sounds;

b ) The dead in Christ are raised:

c ) The living saints are translated (not ‘raptured’).

There certainly does not seem to be room left here for a time gap of any length. In spite of this clear sequence of events, in their determination to prove otherwise, the Rapturists will still defend their mistaken concept of a coming in two stages, by appealing to the distinction between the two Greek words used, in connection with the coming. These words are Parousia, which they contend is coming first to rapture the believers and Apokalupsis which they say is open, visible coming back with the saints after a lapse of time. In reality there are actually six Greek words used in connection with the return of the Lord. For the sake of simplicity we shall list these words, with their English rendering and go on to show that the inspired writers of the New Testament used them interchangeably to describe not two distinct and separate comings but one event.

1. Parousia - This word emphasises the physical or actual personal presence of the one who comes e.g. ‘Be patient unto the COMING (in person) of the Lord.’ James 5:7.

2. Apokalupsis - This word stresses the ‘revealing’ or unveiling of the one who comes e.g. ‘The Lord shall be REVEALED from Heaven.’ II Thess. 1:7.

3. Epiphaneia - This word is used in the sense of the Glory or Majesty that will be manifested as Christ returns e.g. ‘The APPEARING of our Lord Jesus.’ I Tim. 6:14.

4. Heko - This word is used to emphasise the idea of arrival at a certain point or place e.g. ‘Hold fast till I COME (to you).’ Rev. 2:25.

5. Erchomai - This word is used to imply the actual act or event of coming e.g. ‘Occupy till I COME (make the journey).’ Luke 19: 13.

6. Phaneroo - This word means to render apparent e.g. ‘When He shall APPEAR we shall be like Him’ I John 32.

Out of these six words, the one most used is Parousia, but never in the sense of anything that is secret. Paul frequently used this word to refer to the physical presence of himself and others at various locations e.g. he spoke of the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Titus to him from Corinth, II Cor. 7:6, and again in the same Epistle the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Stephanas etc. I Cor. 16:17. Again when writing to the saints at Philippi, Paul said that he would be ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) to visit them. Furthermore Paul spoke of the ‘Coming (PAROUSIA) of the Lord and our gathering together to Him.’ II Thess. 2 as an event seen by all after the appearance of antichrist, not in secret before the appearance of antichrist.

Not only Paul but Peter also used these words PAROUSIA and APOKALUPSIS, and actually used them to refer to the same event, the open manifest, coming again of the Lord Jesus. To see this compare I Peter 1:13 to II Peter 3. To confirm that the two words are interchangeable, we find that Matthew in his Gospel referring to the last days says:

‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming (PAROUSIA) of the Son of Man be.’ Matt. 24:37.

Yet Luke referring to the same event in his Gospel writes:

‘As it was in the days of Noah … even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed (APOKALUPSIS).’ Luke 17:26-30.

Surely this is proof if it is still required that the idea of two comings is at best a nonsense and at worst a deliberate deception. Before leaving this issue we should also say that the other Greek words listed previously can also be used interchangeably, although implying various shades or degrees of meaning.

EPIPHANEIA is used to refer to the Lord returning to destroy antichrist: ‘with the brightness of His COMING.’ II Thess. 2:8.

Certainly nothing secret about that event. PHANEROO can be found in I Peter 5:4.

‘When the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.’

Without doubt the crowning glory of the saints at the Lord’s return will be open and for all to see.

ERCHOMAI and HEKO are actually used in the same sentence to describe the same event:

‘For yet a little while and He that shall come (ERCHOMAI) will come (HEKO) and will not tarry.’ Hebrews 10:37.

In the light of these and many other similar verses it is apparent that the original Greek text confounds and refutes the Secret Rapture teaching rather than confirming and sustaining it.

CAN CHRIST COME BACK AT ANY MOMENT?

Frequently coupled with the Secret Rapture doctrine is the equally misguided notion that Christ can come back at any moment, even tonight, as we so often hear well-meaning Evangelists proclaim. Whilst we do not doubt the Lord’s ability, we do believe that God is the author not of confusion, but of a great plan for the ages. This being the case, and although we are well aware that no man knows the exact day and hour of Christ’s return, it is equally certain that a number of prophecies yet await their complete fulfillment and that not until we witness these things come to pass, can we expect the Lord at any moment. It was this very doctrine which had come into the Church at Thessalonica and made it necessary for Paul to write:

‘Now we beseech you brethren by (concerning) the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by (concerning) our gathering together unto Him that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand (at any moment), let no man deceive you, for that day shall not come except there come, a falling away first and the Man of Sin be revealed.’ II Thess. 2:13.

Now those who believe in the Secret Rapture and that Christ can come at any moment say He will gather the believers before antichrist appears yet the Scripture says the direct opposite.

Again like so much of their teaching it is confusion, confounded, and Scripture stood upon its head.

IN CONCLUSION:

The unscriptural nature of the Secret Rapture doctrine has, instead of preparing God’s people to face the increasingly difficult days ahead, as tribulation intensifies, this doctrine has deluded millions of Christians into a false notion of escapism, and instead of obeying the Lord’s command to resist evil and occupy until He comes, they have been made so Rapture-minded that they no longer even resist the evil, believing not that they will defeat it, but instead be rescued from it.

So who is blind as to what the Word really teaches concerning what is truth.

isa. 42:18-20

The rapture theory is only one of many false doctrines that are being exposed by the truth from God's Law-Word.

God promised to lift the blindness from His people at the end of the age and we are certainly witnessing that this is indeed happening.

It is not my intent to cause conflict in stating truths but unfortunately many prefer believing lies because its more comfortable and appeasing to our carnal nature.

I pray that the explanations regarding the time of harvest (of the tares) causes many to better understand scriptural truths rather than man's traditions.

ice

WOW clearly you have an indepth study and your preception is most exceptable, i appreciate the replys both for and against because like i said it at least people have read it and they have something to think about. Yes there are facts surrounding the teaching and preaching of just how it is understood to the speaker and how he or she translates it to the listener. But the fact remains that faith, hope and love surround the word of God and if we apply these and read or learn what the Bible says then all who are believers, all who love God and wait for his coming, it will not matter the issues of how one man intreprets what he understands. I think the ultimate thing is study to learn ourselves what God wants us to know. Thanks and you added a lot in your message. The more discussion we bring to the table the more someone might see the truth that has been stamped out of this country.

Sam T · August 31, 2011

Folks...as you can tell, this is my first post...having joined this forum just a few days ago in search of data regarding the anticipated RV event.

However, I couldn't resist commenting on Heavy Duty's post and responses by oatman and Aqua Dude.

First of all, let me clarify a thing or two before commenting on Heavy Duty's post.

I am a student of the Bible as well as biblical and secular history. A proper understanding of biblical history is a must to properly understand prophesies.

The field of archeological studies also help to support historical events.

Most Christians do not know biblical history much less secular history and will generally swallow whatever is preached or taught in churches by so-called seminary educated ministers.

It is much like our secular educational system...a dumbing down of students where they are only taught what the power brokers have decided for them to be taught.

A population that is less informed and less inspired to understanding truth is much easier to control.

Many religious systems are much the same.

Most modern churches have been deceived with many (denominational) doctrines and beliefs that have no scriptural foundation. The rapture theory is just one of them.

Heavy Duty, with all due respect, and I say this with sincerity. I know where you are coming from in your belief of this doctrine.

I was raised in a church environment that taught this theory and I really bought into it until I was led to do a full search of scripture and church history to determine if this doctrine had validity. Like so many other church and/or denominational doctrines it has absolutely no biblical foundation.

Oatman and Aqua Dude, I appreciate your comments and do hope that you both have done your homework in order to come to your conclusions and statements.

Knowing and understanding are 2 different things. We generally know something by hearing or reading, but understanding is the result of studying.

That is why God's Law-Word admonishes us in 2 Tim. 2:15 to "Study to show thyself approved............"

There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called secret rapture is a hoax. Much like the eternal BBQ pit called Hell.

However, that is another topic and a vast one at that.

As for the secret rapture, it is something different from the true biblical event referred to as “the catching away, resurrection, coming of Jesus, second coming, return of Jesus, end of the world, or day of Christ.” The rapture theory says Jesus will return suddenly at any moment and secretly take away the Christians leaving behind everyone else to wonder what happened to them. I don’t know where you would find a scriptural basis for such doctrine. It makes a good story line for a novel, but is not scriptural. The bible very plainly speaks of the return of Jesus but never mentions it will be secret in ANY way, that’s why they found it necessary to SPLIT the coming into two separate parts, which is why I call it “Doctrinal Gymnastics”.

In Matthew 24:3 the apostles ask Jesus, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus answering them speaks of different things and then in verse 29 He answers their question about his return.

29. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, (these events could hardly be kept secret) and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30. And then shall appear (for everyone to see) the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see (no secret) the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect (this is the catching away) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” This is a description of the return of Jesus spoken by Jesus himself. He spoke very plainly and easy to understand. His return will not be a secret. What would the tribes of the earth in verse 30 be mourning about if they didn’t know what had happened–that Jesus had returned and they missed it.

ALL over the world today there is an awakening to the near return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a growing interest in the signs of the times. As Bible believing Christians we rejoice at this phenomenon, yet sad to say, in almost every case the doctrine of the Lord’s return has been mixed in with the teaching that He will return first secretly and ‘rapture’ or take away His Church. Although Church History will show that such a theory has only come into prominence over the last one hundred and fifty years, today it is spreading like wildfire, in books, and even films, and accounts for the teaching in 90% of Full Gospel and Fundamentalist Churches and Bible Colleges, world-wide. This being the case it is our duty as students of God’s prophetic Word to examine this doctrine of the Secret Rapture, and ask ourselves -’Is it Scriptural?’

When we remember that the Secret Rapture theory was virtually unheard of and untaught until around 1830, it is essential to examine its origins first. Such a teaching was unknown to the early Church Fathers e.g. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who were convinced that the Christian Church would pass through great tribulation at the hands of the antichrist system before the return of the Lord. Furthermore the Rapture theory was not taught by the great stalwarts of the Reformed Faith - Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer or even by the Wesley brothers in the 18th Century. Whence came this teaching, and where did this novel idea arise?

At the time of the Reformation, the first Protestants widely believed and taught that the Papacy was antichrist, and the Roman Church the Harlot System of Revelation 17. It therefore became necessary for certain Romish theologians to take the pressure off the Pope by inventing a new school of prophetic interpretation now known as Futurism. It was a Jesuit priest named Ribera (1537-1591) who first taught that the events prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation would not be fulfilled until three and a half years at the end of the age when an individual world dictator called Anti-Christ would arise. Thus Ribera laid the foundation of a system of prophetic interpretation of which the Secret Rapture has now become an integral part.

Nevertheless in spite of the efforts of false prophets like Ribera and Cardinal Bellarmine it was not for another two and a half centuries that the Jesuit fables began to gain acceptance by Evangelical Christians. In the early 19th Century Futurism entered the bloodstream of Protestant prophetic teaching by three main roads:

(a) A Chilean Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled ‘The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty’, and in its pages taught the novel notion that Christ returns not once, but twice, and at the ‘first stage’ of His return He ‘raptures‘ His Church so they can escape the reign of the ‘future antichrist‘. In order to avoid any taint of Romanism, Lacunza published his book under the assumed name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza’s book found its way to the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there in 1826 Dr Maitland, the Archbishop’s librarian came upon it and read it and soon after began to issue a series of parmphlets giving the Jesuit, Futurist view of prophecy. The idea soon found acceptance in the Anglo-Catholic Ritualist movement in the National Church of England, and soon it tainted the very heart of Protestantism.

(b ) The Secret Rapture doctrine was given a second door of entrance at this time by the ministry of one, Edward Irving, founder of the so-called ‘Catholic Apostolic Church’. It was in Irving’s London church, in 1830, that a young girl named Margaret McDonald gave an ecstatic prophecy in which she claimed there would be a special secret coming of the Lord to ‘rapture’ those awaiting His return. From then until his death in 1834 Irving devoted his considerable talent as a preacher to spreading the theory of the ’secret rapture’.

(c ) However, it was necessary for Jesuitry to have a third door of entrance to the Reformed fold and this they gained via a sincere Christian, J. N. Darby, generally regarded as the founder of the ‘Brethren’. As an Anglican curate Darby attended a number of mysteriously organized meetings on Bible Prophecy at Powerscourt in Ireland, and at these gatherings he learned about the ’secret rapture’. He carried the teaching into the Brethren and hence into the heart of Evangelicalism. With a new veneer of being scriptural the teaching spread and was later popularized in the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible.

So today the three measures of Roman leaven have corrupted the Prophetic teaching of almost all the Fundamentalist world. Well might we say of the ’secret rapture’, can any good thing come out of Rome?

While the Romanist origin of any doctrine is always sufficient to make it suspect, our Final court of appeal must be to the Holy Scriptures, and so we find it necessary to examine some of the favorite ‘Proof Texts’ which are quoted by the Rapturists and see just what they really teach.

Our blessed Lord said: ‘But know this, that if the good man of the house, had known in what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not have suffered the house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not your Lord will corne.’ Matt. 24:43-44; Luke 12:39-40.

The Rapturists tell us that this shows the secret nature of the Lord’s ‘coming for’ the saints, but does it? The only secrecy implied in the texts is in relation to the day and hour of Christ’s coming and there is nothing to indicate that the coming itself is a secret. In fact we are told:

‘The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of an Archangel and the TRUMP of God.’ I Thess. 4:16. Nothing quiet about that, is there?

Again they refer us to the words: ‘I will come on thee as a thief in the night and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.’ Rev. 3:3.

Or again: ‘Behold I come as a thief, blessed is he that watcheth.’ Rev. 16:15.

However, in both instances just quoted, the secrecy is in connection with the timing not the nature of the event, and it is exactly the same in the other ‘thief text‘.

‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night’ II Peter 3:10

Here again it is the element of surprise that leads to the use of the thief as a symbol. Peter himself finishes this very same ‘thief text’ by saying that at the time of the Lord’s coming:

‘The heavens shall pass away with a GREAT NOISE’

Not much secrecy about that is there? After all did not Paul tell his readers:

‘But ye brethren ARE NOT in darkness that, that day shall overtake you as a thief.’ I Thess. 5:4.

You see, as Christians, they were studying the signs of the times as we should be doing and were ready for Christ’s return. He will only come as a thief for those who are not prepared for Him.

Furthermore the very concept of a ‘thief’ must be called into question for, at the time when our Lord and the Apostles spoke, a thief was much more likely to be a bandit or leader of a gang of robbers who swept down on his victims in swift, sudden, but open and daring raids, and he was not a sneak thief or burglar, as we have today.

The Rapturists would have us believe that the Lord comes secretly to rescue His people before what they call ‘the great tribulation’ or time of trouble begins. To support this idea they quote the Lord Jesus as saying: ‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be … then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken, the other left. Watch therefore for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ Matt. 24:37-42.

How often we have heard this text used to challenge sinners to come to Christ and of the terrible things that will happen when their Christian friends and relatives have been ‘raptured’. Let us not take the text from its context to make it a pretext. The clear setting and key to the understanding of the verse is: ‘As it was in the days of Noah’, and we all know that then it was the wicked who were taken away and the righteous left to inherit a purified earth. Such a concept of the removal of the wicked is in keeping with the clear teaching given by our Lord in two of His Kingdom Parables. In that of the Wheat and the Tares, we are told that the harvest is the end of the age, when the angels will gather out of the kingdom, the tares, which represent the wicked or those who offend. Again in the same thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we find the Parable of the Dragnet. In its symbolism it is the bad or evil ones who are removed out of the Kingdom for Jesus says:

‘So shall it be at the end of the world (age), the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just.’ Matt. 13:49.

If a third witness were needed the Old Testament prophet Isaiah tells us:

‘Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.’

Let me ask you to consider very carefully just who the Lord will ‘rapture’ or remove. Surely it is His intention to give this earth into the possession of the righteous as He said in His Sermon on the Mount. Did not our Lord pray in John 17: 15:

‘I pray NOT that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil’?

Surely our Lord promised to be with us not until the ’secret rapture’ but ‘to the end of the age.’

Another favorite proof text of the Rapturists is Jude v 14:

‘Behold the Lord cometh, with ten thousands of His Saints.’

Then by coupling this to first Thessalonians 4:16-17 where we are told that the saints will be ‘caught up together … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ they glibly tell us that Christ comes first for His saints, and that He returns with the saints, after either three and a half or seven years - a period of time which they cannot agree on.

Once again we find that all is not as simple as they would have us believe. It is indeed true that at His Coming, the dead in Christ together with the living believers will be translated or caught up to meet the Lord in the air, but there is no Scripture to even suggest that He takes them to heaven where they remain for a period of time, be it long or short, and then return with Him. Far from it, they meet the Lord in the air as His entourage or glory train, as earthly courtiers would go out to greet their King, as He is on His way back to earth where His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives as the disciples were told at the time of His Ascension. So let us look at the verse in Jude which refers to coming ‘with the Saints’. The word translated ’saints’ in our Bible comes from a Greek word HAGIOUS, which means Holy. Since Christ Himself taught that:

‘The Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the Holy (HAGIOUS) angels with Him. Matt. 25:31 It seems more than likely that the word translated saints in Jude refers to angels. Since the verse referred to in Jude speaks of Christ returning with His saints to execute judgement we would do well to examine another similar verse of scripture which tells us the same thing:

‘The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them who know not God, and obey not the Gospel.’ II Thess. 1:7-8.

It seems we need not the Rapturists’ theories, for Scripture interprets itself and one verse can often throw light upon another. Let us also remember that the expression ‘ten thousands of His Saints’ is not only in Jude but in Deuteronomy 33:2:

‘The Lord came from Sinai … with ten thousands of His saints.’

There can therefore be no doubt that these ’saints’ were angels, a fact attested to by Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and the extra-canonical Book of Enoch. So much for coming ‘for’ and ‘with’ the saints.

Let us look again briefly at I Thess. 4 for here we are clearly told that at the moment the living saints are caught up to meet the Lord the righteous dead are also resurrected. Now if the Futurists and Rapturists are correct and there is indeed a time gap before the Lord returns, or the Day of the Lord occurs, there is surely a grave discrepancy for Martha believed that her brother Lazarus would: ‘rise again in the Resurrection at the last day.’ John 11:24. Job, the Old Testament saint also taught that the dead would not rise until ‘the heavens be no more’ Job 14:10-12 or ‘the latter day’ Job 19:25-27.

The order of events in I Thess. 4:16-17 clearly shows what happens at the last day or Day of the Lord is:

a ) The trump of God sounds;

b ) The dead in Christ are raised:

c ) The living saints are translated (not ‘raptured’).

There certainly does not seem to be room left here for a time gap of any length. In spite of this clear sequence of events, in their determination to prove otherwise, the Rapturists will still defend their mistaken concept of a coming in two stages, by appealing to the distinction between the two Greek words used, in connection with the coming. These words are Parousia, which they contend is coming first to rapture the believers and Apokalupsis which they say is open, visible coming back with the saints after a lapse of time. In reality there are actually six Greek words used in connection with the return of the Lord. For the sake of simplicity we shall list these words, with their English rendering and go on to show that the inspired writers of the New Testament used them interchangeably to describe not two distinct and separate comings but one event.

1. Parousia - This word emphasises the physical or actual personal presence of the one who comes e.g. ‘Be patient unto the COMING (in person) of the Lord.’ James 5:7.

2. Apokalupsis - This word stresses the ‘revealing’ or unveiling of the one who comes e.g. ‘The Lord shall be REVEALED from Heaven.’ II Thess. 1:7.

3. Epiphaneia - This word is used in the sense of the Glory or Majesty that will be manifested as Christ returns e.g. ‘The APPEARING of our Lord Jesus.’ I Tim. 6:14.

4. Heko - This word is used to emphasise the idea of arrival at a certain point or place e.g. ‘Hold fast till I COME (to you).’ Rev. 2:25.

5. Erchomai - This word is used to imply the actual act or event of coming e.g. ‘Occupy till I COME (make the journey).’ Luke 19: 13.

6. Phaneroo - This word means to render apparent e.g. ‘When He shall APPEAR we shall be like Him’ I John 32.

Out of these six words, the one most used is Parousia, but never in the sense of anything that is secret. Paul frequently used this word to refer to the physical presence of himself and others at various locations e.g. he spoke of the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Titus to him from Corinth, II Cor. 7:6, and again in the same Epistle the ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) of Stephanas etc. I Cor. 16:17. Again when writing to the saints at Philippi, Paul said that he would be ‘coming’ (PAROUSIA) to visit them. Furthermore Paul spoke of the ‘Coming (PAROUSIA) of the Lord and our gathering together to Him.’ II Thess. 2 as an event seen by all after the appearance of antichrist, not in secret before the appearance of antichrist.

Not only Paul but Peter also used these words PAROUSIA and APOKALUPSIS, and actually used them to refer to the same event, the open manifest, coming again of the Lord Jesus. To see this compare I Peter 1:13 to II Peter 3. To confirm that the two words are interchangeable, we find that Matthew in his Gospel referring to the last days says:

‘As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming (PAROUSIA) of the Son of Man be.’ Matt. 24:37.

Yet Luke referring to the same event in his Gospel writes:

‘As it was in the days of Noah … even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed (APOKALUPSIS).’ Luke 17:26-30.

Surely this is proof if it is still required that the idea of two comings is at best a nonsense and at worst a deliberate deception. Before leaving this issue we should also say that the other Greek words listed previously can also be used interchangeably, although implying various shades or degrees of meaning.

EPIPHANEIA is used to refer to the Lord returning to destroy antichrist: ‘with the brightness of His COMING.’ II Thess. 2:8.

Certainly nothing secret about that event. PHANEROO can be found in I Peter 5:4.

‘When the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.’

Without doubt the crowning glory of the saints at the Lord’s return will be open and for all to see.

ERCHOMAI and HEKO are actually used in the same sentence to describe the same event:

‘For yet a little while and He that shall come (ERCHOMAI) will come (HEKO) and will not tarry.’ Hebrews 10:37.

In the light of these and many other similar verses it is apparent that the original Greek text confounds and refutes the Secret Rapture teaching rather than confirming and sustaining it.

CAN CHRIST COME BACK AT ANY MOMENT?

Frequently coupled with the Secret Rapture doctrine is the equally misguided notion that Christ can come back at any moment, even tonight, as we so often hear well-meaning Evangelists proclaim. Whilst we do not doubt the Lord’s ability, we do believe that God is the author not of confusion, but of a great plan for the ages. This being the case, and although we are well aware that no man knows the exact day and hour of Christ’s return, it is equally certain that a number of prophecies yet await their complete fulfillment and that not until we witness these things come to pass, can we expect the Lord at any moment. It was this very doctrine which had come into the Church at Thessalonica and made it necessary for Paul to write:

‘Now we beseech you brethren by (concerning) the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by (concerning) our gathering together unto Him that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand (at any moment), let no man deceive you, for that day shall not come except there come, a falling away first and the Man of Sin be revealed.’ II Thess. 2:13.

Now those who believe in the Secret Rapture and that Christ can come at any moment say He will gather the believers before antichrist appears yet the Scripture says the direct opposite.

Again like so much of their teaching it is confusion, confounded, and Scripture stood upon its head.

IN CONCLUSION:

The unscriptural nature of the Secret Rapture doctrine has, instead of preparing God’s people to face the increasingly difficult days ahead, as tribulation intensifies, this doctrine has deluded millions of Christians into a false notion of escapism, and instead of obeying the Lord’s command to resist evil and occupy until He comes, they have been made so Rapture-minded that they no longer even resist the evil, believing not that they will defeat it, but instead be rescued from it.

So who is blind as to what the Word really teaches concerning what is truth.

isa. 42:18-20

The rapture theory is only one of many false doctrines that are being exposed by the truth from God's Law-Word.

God promised to lift the blindness from His people at the end of the age and we are certainly witnessing that this is indeed happening.

It is not my intent to cause conflict in stating truths but unfortunately many prefer believing lies because its more comfortable and appeasing to our carnal nature.

I pray that the explanations regarding the time of harvest (of the tares) causes many to better understand scriptural truths rather than man's traditions.

ice

God Bless you

imgesing...good question.

What do you think?

Is God, the Creator of all things, a God of Love for His creation or just for a few of those souls who manage to hear, believe and accept Him.

Does it make sense to you that this God of Love would torture those who didn't accept Him to an eternal BBQ pit that the church world believes will happen?

Or is it possible that our Creator has a plan and purpose to bring about total restoration of His Creation?

It is a huge subject to discuss and one that most churches won't even consider because they are locked in with their false doctrines and dare not debate it.

ice

We have a choice in everything we do. I choose to know God and most people don't know God's voice or His word.

estewart · August 31, 2011

WOW clearly you have an indepth study and your preception is most exceptable, i appreciate the replys both for and against because like i said it at least people have read it and they have something to think about. Yes there are facts surrounding the teaching and preaching of just how it is understood to the speaker and how he or she translates it to the listener. But the fact remains that faith, hope and love surround the word of God and if we apply these and read or learn what the Bible says then all who are believers, all who love God and wait for his coming, it will not matter the issues of how one man intreprets what he understands. I think the ultimate thing is study to learn ourselves what God wants us to know. Thanks and you added a lot in your message. The more discussion we bring to the table the more someone might see the truth that has been stamped out of this country.

What God wants us to know?

Well, I thought God was All-Powerful, and knows EVERYTHING, and can do anything, too. Besides, on the Seventh Day God rested. His work was done. He doesn't WANT anything further. (READ THE BIBLE!)

The God you seem to be talking about does not seem all that capable or knowledgeable. (Note: If you tell me that God hopes for this or that I will need to ask you, "How do you know that? How do you know what's on God's mind?")

In my view, any God who is not One with Infinity is a pip-squeak, really.

Oh, is God a being who enjoys bursts of vengeance and who creates a Hell to send His Creation into, and where those that believe in Him are proud that they are God Fearing Christians?

In my view, further, all the above is concerned with a totally spiritually sick situation. Very ill. Altogether unwell. Lost, even.

CRYPTO REWARDS!

IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE

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