For as long as I can remember, the church has talked about the rapture. I grew interested in this teaching back when I was still a youth. My digging through the scriptures lead me to believe some things differently than what I was being told. For one thing, I do not find any reason to believe in a rapture. On the contrary, I find every reason to believe it a modern myth.
The reasons for this are many. For one thing, look at the way God created man kind. If it is true that this was his plan A, and would like to return us all to something along those lines, then this earth must be returned to Garden of Eden like conditions and a purified man kind will live there. Considering this idea, take note of how Revelations ends. At the End of this age, God brings down a new Heaven and a new Earth to us here. That might mean that He will re-create the "Like New" condition here on earth for us. Something to think about.
A second point is that the term Rapture never appears in the Bible. Oddly enough, nor does any mention of the saints going to heaven. There is no passage, verse or phrase that says or means "the saints go to heaven." There are about four such passages that say the meek will inherit the earth. That is another thing to think about.
But the most convincing point is something that the Holy Spirit reveled to me many years ago. I call it the five signs. In order to approach this concept let me first ask you to consider the chances of two singular events having the same basic features. When I shop for new glasses, I go in to a store and tell the clerk that I am only interested in those glasses which have cable arms and a mono piece bridge. By specify only two features, I have at times eliminated every design in the store. With luck, I might be left with two or three pairs from which to choose.
So it is with great interest that I noticed one day that the passages in Mathew 24:29-31 and I Thessalonians 4:15-18 had five features which are the same. The author of the series "Left Behind" considers these two passages and says that they describe separate events. How can they? They both talk about a time when God comes back to earth, they both have the sign of the clouds. When Jesus ascended it was foretold that he would return in the clouds, just like he left. Both passages have the sign of the angels who appear with him. Both passages have the sign of the trumpet sounding. And the fifth sign is that upon his return the saints are collected and brought to Him. This gathering of the Saints is what some take to be the Rapture, but how can that make any sense at all when the passage in Matthew that describes the exact same event with the exact same five historic features… does so starting with these words, "Immediately after the tribulation…"? Now that is really something to think about!
^-^ The wise
(*v*) Ol' Owl
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--"---"---- Dan Willey
1 comment:
Well, ther IS a passage about a certain 144000 from the tribes of Israel who were sealed with the name of God, Rev. 7:1 and taken up, prior to the coming of the tribulations, since God made the angel hold them back until the sealing was done Rev. 7:3.. BUt what follow afterward is yet another group of white robed Christians, who don't get carried away, even though they praise God - they are admonished to hold fast and not lose their crown, even though some of them will become slaves and some of them will die.
So it is pointless to think that the 144,000 are the only Christians alive on Earth at that time.. no sudden disappearance, no 'Left Behind' so to speak. The faith of the Christians is to be tested by God.
I have been listening to the teaching of the so-called Rapture at work; the truth is plain in the book of Matthew though, as well as in Revelation that this is folly.
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