Addressing those who claim there is only one future coming: Please don’t delete or close this message. At least be fair about this. Please read it through. I feel sure that what was just said does not apply to RaptureReady readers, but it is an addition I add for others.
Have you thought about the face of the Lord Jesus when He returns to greet believers? That depends on what your position is regarding the coming of Christ. We look at the Rapture and the Second Coming, for there are two faces. Which one will you see, or want to see?
[A]. THE FACE OF GOD THE SON
Tell me from these verses how the Lord will greet His church when He comes again?
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
What is that scene in Thessalonians? Describe for me the face of the Lord Jesus when He comes to collect His Church, the dead and the living. Please tell me. What if I gave you this description (under this) of His face when He comes to claim His victory and His reward; when He comes to gather up those who are “the joy that was set before Him”; when He who is the Bridegroom of the Bride goes to the far country to fetch His Bride as it was when Isaac’s bride was taken from a far country; when He comes for His Church as flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone à What if I described His face this way when He comes for His redeemed people, the Church, and is this what they see?:
Revelation 19:12 “HIS EYES ARE A FLAME OF FIRE, and upon His head are many diadems and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself.”
Revelation 19:15 “FROM HIS MOUTH COMES A SHARP SWORD so that with it He may smite the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.”
Christian, how would you like the Lord Jesus Christ to come to you with that appearance? Well, that is supposedly what the Rapture deniers would have to believe, for Revelation 19 is all about wrath and judgment in the Second Coming to Armageddon. (All that will happen, except the lovely Marriage Supper IN HEAVEN with the Church BEFORE His coming in wrath and glory (Revelation 19:7-9). Revelation 19 opens in heaven with all the Church and probably angels proclaiming – Revelation 19:1 After these things I heard, as it were, a loud voice of a great multitude IN HEAVEN, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.’”
[B]. THE DENIERS OF THE RAPTURE
Today I watched just a little on the denial of the Rapture (actually trashing and mocking the idea) in a message placed on YouTube. It was delivered by no less than R. C. Sproul, a well-known name in evangelical circles. I will not put this man down or call him a false teacher. He is a wrong teacher when it comes to eschatology but sound in orthodox Christianity. Sproul kept using the term “at the end of time” regarding the Lord’s return, and anyone who does this and talks about “the end of time” is wayward about the things to come because it is nebulous, and the person does not have matters worked out.
Time will only end in Revelation 21:1 with the new heaven and new earth, which is when eternity begins. Before that, there is much Tribulation, a great battle (Armageddon), a reign of 1,000 years, a satanic revolt on Earth, and the judgment of the great white throne.
The eternal state is what God dwells in from eternity past to eternity future forever. Our finite minds can’t grasp that. The question is asked, “Where did God come from?” People want to know that and seem put back when you tell them, “God is eternal and has always existed.” It seems that answer is not good enough for them.
The two verses I quoted from Revelation after 4 paragraphs back DO NOT refer to the Rapture but to the Second Coming. It is incomprehensible that Jesus, my Redeemer and Head of the Church, would come in judgment against her, his Bride; the Church that Christ loved and gave Himself for.
It is just unthinkable that a man would come for his marriage in a church to claim his bride, and his eyes were flames of judgmental fire, and a devouring sword proceeding from his mouth when he is about to take up his bride. YET, that is how it will be in the logic of the distorted mind when the Lord returns because the distorted mind has no separate Rapture before judgement but has that judgment as the Rapture. That is what happens when you wrongly allocate scripture.
[C]. A DOOR OPENED
There are two occasions in Revelation that speak of heaven being opened: one in Chapter 4 and one in Chapter 19. These are separated by 15 chapters. The ill-taught ignore that fact. The ill-taught are gaining the ascendency now in religious circles because, in the world today, there is a concerted effort by Rapture deniers to promote their wrong teaching, and the Internet is full of it. It must show the weakness today of conservative, evangelical churches to maintain the positions on the fundamentals.
Here are the two Revelation verses I was referring to:
(a). Revelation 4:1 “After these things I looked, and behold, A DOOR STANDING OPEN IN HEAVEN, and the first VOICE which I had heard like the sound of a TRUMPET speaking with me said, ‘COME UP HERE, and I will show you what must take place after these things.’”
(b). Revelation 19:11 “I SAW HEAVEN OPENED and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness HE JUDGES AND WAGES WAR.”
The chapter 4 verse is the call OF the Church and TO the Church when heaven opens – look at the parallel language with Revelation 4:1 à 1 Thessalonians 4:16 “For the Lord Himself WILL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of the archangel, and with the TRUMPET of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” This is when the Lord comes for His Church.
The Chapter 19:11 verse presents a Warrior of fearsome appearance going forth into battle. There are two comings outlined in (a) and (b) above, and they are as diverse from each other as it is possible to get.
I have found it hard to get common sense from the ones who deny a separate Rapture. Their understanding of the events of the end times is fuzzy and ill-formed. Ask them to give you an account of what happens in sequence. They cannot do it satisfactorily. They don’t even know their own position, but they MUST oppose the Rapture.
Some tell you the Lord comes and catches up the Christians as He comes back to Earth at the Second Advent. Honestly, what would be the purpose of that? Some write all the prophetic scriptures off as allegorical, as did Augustine. Ask these people what the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is, and you spin them into confusion. They write it off, or claim it to be some figurative event in heaven or on Earth, or a picture of an event that is portrayed in heaven but happens on Earth.
Clearly, the Marriage Supper happens in heaven on the eve of the Second Coming between the Lamb and His Bride. That means the Church must ALREADY be in heaven and has been for almost 7 years. When you twist Scripture, you come up with excuses or fanciful notions.
[D]. THE CHANGE IN CHURCH DIRECTION AND THE NICENE CREED
All these problems have resulted from the departure of the early Church after the first century from the literalness of Scripture, the inroads of Gnosticism, and a whole range of false teaching (heresies). Men like Constantine, who I am strongly convinced was not converted, took over the Church and married it to the world (the prophetic time of Pergamum in Church History. Pergamum means “twice married”). He had a lot to do with the Nicene Council that formulated its creed, where the whole content of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the 13 Minor Prophets, Matthew 13 and 24 and 25, ARE ALL SUMMED UP IN 11 ENGLISH WORDS (though the translations vary a bit, as in this example of 14 words):
*** “He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.” ***
Here is another – “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
About 56 years later, after Nicea, they added to the creed, “and His kingdom will have no end.”
Thus, with one line, they destroyed the prophetic scriptures, and the hope of the Rapture died. Then in the 400s A.D., along came Augustine, who did irreparable damage to biblical interpretation by writing off all unfulfilled prophecy as allegorical, as he did with all Old Testament prophecies about Israel, and prophecies in general. Israel’s future was dead. The Rapture was dead.
The church lived with those consequences for around 1,500 years, though there were always just a handful down the ages who saw it correctly. The Reformers just stuck to the Catholic Church idea from Augustine and did not examine the matter, which was very sad. That is one serious problem with Covenant Theology, and they steadfastly will not ever honestly look at their position on prophecy.
That brings us to today, to the confusion and ignorance of proper prophetic, biblical teaching. We have the mass of people who deny the Rapture but who cannot explain biblical prophecy except to quote that last utterance of the Nicene Creed (Later evolving into the Apostles’ Creed).
Ignorance wants to argue. These people who do not know how to defend their position turn on you. I don’t have the time to go on to YouTube all the time to argue with these people, but occasionally I reply to a comment someone has made, and usually get told I don’t know what I am talking about, and that I ought to study the Bible, and that I have no idea of Scripture. I just dismissively smile at that.
There seems to be a coordinated effort in recent times to attack the Rapture position, claiming those who hold to it are afraid to go through suffering, and the Rapture is their comfort blanket. It is strange, but this is coming now from a lot of sources. I suppose it is not so strange, as Satan will have a primary attack on the coming of Christ for his Church.
The accusation that Rapture Christians are afraid of suffering has nothing to do whatsoever with the matter. The truth is that the Tribulation is God’s wrath, and God’s wrath was taken by Jesus Christ on the cross, and all was completed on the cross for our sins. IT WAS COMPLETED. We will not be put through what Jesus took on our behalf. That is why Paul could write – 1 Thessalonians 1:10 “and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is, Jesus who DELIVERS US FROM THE WRATH TO COME.”
[E]. CLOSING COMMENTS
In fact, all those holding to a non-separate Rapture position generally write Israel off (but not all). To them, the Jews and Israel have no future. I suppose if you deny one, you must deny the other. Look how Satan will try to destroy the Jewish believers in Revelation 12.
Some think I have tunnel vision of “this rapture stuff,” but in reality, it is the correct interpretation of Scripture that counts, and that is what we strive for, and it is our glorious hope. God has given us the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, but some stay at home and do not venture out with the proper mining equipment to mine the word of God for its treasures. There is a biblical term – “rightly dividing the word of truth,” and the reason it is there is because the word of God, when opened carefully, will show many divisions such as Jew and Gentile, judgment for the saints, and judgment for the unsaved.
Please treat the Rapture and the Second Coming the same way.
The Rapture is clearly taught, and there is a definite distinction between the coming FOR the saints in 1 Thessalonians 4 and the coming WITH the saints in Revelation 19.
Going back to the start of this account, asking about the face of the Lord when He comes for His Christians – when the Lord comes as Bridegroom for His Church, He comes with a FACE of glory and love, compassion, victory, and grace, as He gently captures away (snatches away) His Bride in an instant.
When the Lord comes in full judgment against the world at Armageddon (The Second Coming), He comes with a FACE of judgment, with a sharp sword so that with it He may smite the nations – heaven and Earth will flee away figuratively for the dread of that coming.
Which coming will you be connected with? Which face will you see?