HIS GLORIOUS APPEARING – THE REAL RAPTURE!

15
 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not
meet him ahead of those who have died.  16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven
with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.
First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves.  17 Then, together with them, we
who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever….1 Thessalonians 4 (NLT)

Are these two

separate
events? If you
listen to false
prophets like
Harold Camping or
some such fun-for-
a-day media hype,
these ARE two
events.

In other words,
does Jesus come
first to take us up,
say, to a safe
“hiding place”…
and then jump on
the most beautiful
White Horse in the
universe! After He
gets on the Horse,
“Stage 2 begins”…
the Angels blow a trumpet, the sky splits open and all Heaven breaks loose on the sick and
dying world!

Sounds good, huh!! One problem with this pre-tribilutation talk is – IT IS NOT TRUE! It is also
NOT biblical. I hate to take down so many American Christians’ sacred cows but the belief in the
so-called Pre-Tribulation “Rapture” is solely an American Christian marketing scheme which has
become “molded” into church “doctrine” over the last 100 years!

We have also seen the LEFT BEHIND movie series with actor Kirk Cameron. These movies were
based on a series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (who actually did most of the work
on these books). These books sold over 60 million copies in all, most of them to American
evangelicals who have bought this easy-believism false doctrine, hook line and sinker! Our
churches now have bought into the theory that we don’t have to be ready for persecution,
tribulation and trials….all we have to is believe some preacher/author or actor that “just before
the anti-christ shows up, somehow Jesus will begin “Stage 1” of His Glorious Appearing and
“rapture” us!

The bottom line premise of all of this hype - from church ‘doctrine’ to Left Behind to the Harold
Camping nonsense – is “we in the western church will not have to bother with any of this bad
stuff in the world. Because right before all the wars, rumors of wars and one world government
led by Satan, starts, Jesus is coming to take us out, so we don’t get hurt or persecuted for our
beliefs”!!! Huh?????

Tell that to the 300 million Chinese Christians persecuted daily for over 60 years – beaten,
brutalized and beset by evil ….

Tell that to the hundreds of Eritrean Christians stuffed into shipping containers right now by
their persecutors from islam …alive…in the hot African desert heat.

Tell that to the South Sudanese Christians slaughtered by moslem Northern Sudan….and on and
on…or are we so special that we have a favored place in Heaven?!

NO and a thousand times, NO! Many from Polycarp to Joan of Ark to John Hus to the present
time would have loved to be “caught up” and taken home…but this is not what Jesus promised
us!

So before we look briefly at what the Bible actually SAYS about these last days and what the
correct view is, let’s see what the RAPTURE is NOT!

WHAT DOES “RAPTURE” MEAN?

First of all, the word “RAPTURE” is not even in the Bible! Where this word comes from starts
with verse 17 (see above) of 1 Thessalonians 4. The Apostle Paul says “…and remain on earth
will be caught up in the clouds….”
The original word the Apostle used for “caught up “is “harpagēsometha”. This literally means
caught up and taken away…in an exclusive one-time event. How we got the word Rapture out
of this is simple.

The great Jerome translated the Greek bible of the times (around 390 AD) into Latin and used
the Latin word “rapiemur” to translate the Greek word “taken up”.

Therefore the word “rapture” comes from Jerome’s Latin translation of the original text!

WHERE DID THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE ORIGINATE?

Englishman John Nelson Darby has long been “credited’ as been the originator of the Theory of
the Pre- Tribulation rapture of the church in 1827. However, he
may have been influenced by the preaching of a Scottish
preacher named Edward Irving. Irving was the David Jeremiah
of his time!

Irving himself may have been influenced into this incorrect way
of thinking by a mystic Spanish Jesuit priest named Manuel
Lacunza, who wrote a book in Spanish called “ La venida del
Mesías en gloria y majestad” or “The Coming of the Messiah in
Glory and Majesty”.

This was the first major writing which came close to proposing
this idea of believers being removed from the earth before the
Judgment of Christ! Irving translated Lacunza’s book into English in 1827, and started preaching
about it across England and Scotland.

We believe this is how Darby heard about this new thing and came up with his own
interpretation called the “Pre-tribulation Rapture”.

DARBY AND THE SCOFIELD BIBLE

Darby began promoting this also around 1827 and moved in a non-denominational group of
Christians called the Plymouth Brethren. They began what we know today as the Bible
Conference movement which spread from England, across the Atlantic into America (and there
is nothing wrong with that!)
It was an attractive teaching and produced many bestselling books (just like today with the LEFT
BEHIND series!!). The best know of these was the SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE!

Cyrus Scofield took Darby’s Teaching (on the Pre Trib Rapture) and marketed it into the
mainstream of American Christianity with his, now century long, best-selling version of the
Word of God! The major protestant denominations at the time – Baptists, Presbyterians, and
the Congregationalists all bought into this big time! The established churches – Catholic,
Anglican and Eastern Orthodox – did not.

Since 1909, it has been the best selling edition of the Bible in England, Ireland and before
Zondervan’s New International Version (NIV), here in America too!

This is how the doctrine of an easy out for the saints of God got into the mainstream of US
Christianity! Scofield also took up another doctrine from Darby and magnified it – the Doctrine
of Dispensationalism, which will be discussed another time.

THE HUGE DANGER

With the Scofield Bible in full support, Dr John Walvoord, a top theologian at Dallas Theological
Seminary (DTS) took this to another level when he wrote a defense of the doctrine in a book
called “The Rapture Question”. This has been influencing two generations of preachers since he
wrote this in 1957, to the detriment of the Kingdom.

The reason I say that is many of America’s famous preachers and some not so well known, but
who promote this without investigating everything, are have been pounding “The Imminent
Return of Christ” in their churches. I love the preaching of men like Tony Evans, Swindoll and
Dr. Stephen Davey of North Carolina’s Wisdom from the Heart, but their Eschatology (or
teaching on End Times Prophesy) has been discolored by indoctrination from DTS and other
seminaries across the spectrum of America!

It is bad enough Scofield put dispensationalism into the mainstream. However because the DTS
graduates are teaching the “Rapture at any time”…along with the many other Southern Baptist
and Assembly of God colleges, this thing has multiplied itself to become almost like the Virgin
Birth of Christ to Christians!

AND IT IS DEAD WRONG AND FULL OF DANGER!

What do I mean by Danger? I have seen it first hand in most of the churches I have attended
over 20 plus years. Here is now the danger is REAL and will be eternally deadly one day:

The preaching of the Word now become the following math equation:
Say this prayer + Believe in “Your Heart” + Trust in the Finished work on the Cross = You’re
Saved.

It has become now that serious Bible students and the concerned among us have no clue if the
person sitting alongside us in church is even saved…but they followed this here formula above…
so they “must be”!

Let’s take this further: Person X …let’s say Frank and Francine Smith, follows this formula and
now believes they are saved, they are then told by a preacher they are going to heaven (and
they may well be saved….but there’s more).

The preacher then starts talking about “Christ can come anytime…even while I am preaching”!!
So the new Christians….and the others in the pews who have heard this for months and years,
feel all nice and happy because “Jesus is coming to take me away” ….like Calgon!

This false teaching has led to the modern church not caring a hoot about the unsaved on the
streets, in the offices etc.

It has led to a complete lack of concern for Discipleship.

It has led to a lack of repentance in the Body of Christ “because we’re in, buddy”!

It has led to a complete lack of Fruit for the Kingdom, because these seminary graduate pastors
and their professors have a derogatory term for anyone who believes in Repentance, accepting
Jesus as Lord NOW and doing Good Works (as James commanded – Faith without works is
Dead, dead, dead). They call us Lordship Salvation people!

It has led to a lack of prayer ministries and services in churches.

What it has led to is some people being so set in their ways that if anyone challenges this
teaching, the hammer literally comes down on them in a completely unchristian manner! I have
seen people leaving a church over this kind of debate! Why should this happen if this doctrine
of PreTrib Rapture is so “Christ like” and Biblical?!

CORRIE TEN BOOM:

Corrie Ten Boom warned about the real life consequences of this, in a letter she wrote while
visiting churches in the persecuted lands across the far corners of the Globe. This letter is
published on page 199 of a book by British Evangelist David Pawson in his book called “WHEN
JESUS RETURNS” (Hodder & Stoughton (August 1, 2003)
Read the following and check your heart to see if Christ really wants you believing in this false
Rapture and taking away BEFORE the Persecution and Tribulation, when He specifically says the
Elect will have to live through some of it!

While reading Corrie’s heartfelt letter in part, also be encouraged that there is one day, going
to BE A RAPTURE! Yes there is, but it will be a one- time event, not in two parts and the World
will know it because they will see JESUS at the same time because there will be NO MISTAKING
IT WHEN THE HEAVENS SPLIT OPEN AND HE DECIDES TO COME DOWN AND TAKE BACK HIS
CREATION!!!

Corrie Ten Boom: “There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation that the
Christians will be able to escape all this.  These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us
to expect in the latter days.  Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on
across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible
persecution.

In China, the Christians were told, “Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be
translated- raptured."  Then came a terrible persecution.  Millions of Christians were tortured to
death.  Later, I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,

"We have failed...

We should have made the people strong for persecution,
rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people to be strong in times of persecution,
how to stand when the tribulation comes,
to stand and not faint."

I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be
strong in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty
percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation.  There is
no way to escape it.  We are next.

Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China,
now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation."
Then I write it down and learn it by heart. 

When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came
out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today."
But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had
committed to memory gave me great hope and joy. 

"If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the spirit of the glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified."
I Peter 4:14"

I found myself saying, "Hallelujah! 

Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!" 

In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa
the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand
Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because
they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that
when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many
members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue
right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation. 

Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The
first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to
register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The
next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the
Christians in the district were being systematically murdered. 

The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear
and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this
one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?" 

The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and
swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my
childhood. 

"When I was a little girl, I said, I went to my father and said,

"Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"Tell me," said Father,
"When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket?"
"Three weeks before?"
"No Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That’s right," my father said, “and so it is with God’s strength"
"Our Father in heaven knows when you need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"He will supply all you need just in time."
My African friends were nodding and smiling. 
Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing, 
“In the sweet, by and by, 
we shall meet on that beautiful shore." 

Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed. 

I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago. 

But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people,
for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered
that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to
the end, He would give a crown of life. 

How can we get ready for the persecution? 

SOWHAT IS THE CORRECT VIEW

I have laid out the error of the Pre Tribulation Rapture. So, what is the correct teaching and way
to study correct this misdirection and then teach others the Bible Truth on it?
Without commentary at all, the Bible will speak for itself on what we call and believe to be true,
because when Jesus says it, it is not an option. Several of my brothers and sisters in Christ and I
believe in the correct sequence of these verses.

We believe the church will NOT be raptured until the man of sin – the ANTICHRIST- is revealed,
and then commits the horrendous Abomination that brings Desolation…as Christ said.

We believe the Third Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt first. There are already full blown
plans and even the garments of the next High Priest are ready to go!! The Sanhedrin who
persecuted and killed Christ, have reformed in Israel! Yes, that SAME Sanhedrin!

THE PRE-WRATH RAPTURE:

THE WORDS OF JESUS ARE IN RED.

WHEN YOU READ THE TRUTH FROM CHRIST, NONE OF THIS NONSENCE FROM RICH
AMERICAN FALSE PROPHETS ON TV/RADIO WILL MATTER. THEY WILL FACE JUDGMENT. PRAY
FOR THAT THE EYES OF THESE SEMINARY TEACHERS TO BE OPEN TO THE TRUTH AS WELL!

Matthew 24: 9-31 (NLT)

9
 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed . You will be hated all over the
world because you are my followers. 10 And many will turn away from me and betray and hate
each other. 11 And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. 12 Sin will be
rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the
end will be saved. 14 And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the
whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.

 15 “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious
object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!) 16 “Then
those in Judea must flee to the hills. 17 A person out on the deck of a roof must not go down
into the house to pack. 18 A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat. 19 How
terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. 20 And pray that
your flight will not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For there will be greater anguish than at
any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. 22 In fact, unless that time of
calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive .
But it will be shortened
for the sake of God’s chosen ones (the REAL RAPTURE: PRE-
WRATH!!)
 23 “Then if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There he is,’ don’t believe it. 24 For
false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to
deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. 25 See, I have warned you about this ahead of
time.

 26 “So if someone tells you, ‘Look, the Messiah is out in the desert,’ don’t bother to go and look.
Or, ‘Look, he is hiding here,’ don’t believe it! 27 For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines
to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. 28 Just as the gathering of vultures shows
there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.

 29 “Immediately after the anguish of those days,

   the sun will be darkened,

      the moon will give no light,
   the stars will fall from the sky,
      and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

 30 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there
will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man
coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels
with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world
—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

2 Thessalonians 1: 4-12

 4 We proudly tell God’s other churches about your endurance and faithfulness in all the
persecutions and hardships you are suffering. 5 And God will use this persecution to show his
justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. 6 In his justice he
will pay back those who persecute you.

 7 And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord
Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire, bringing
judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of
our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the
Lord and from his glorious power. 10 When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his
holy people—praise from all who believe. And this includes you, for you believed what we told
you about him.

 11 So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call.
May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to
do. 12 Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will
be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord,
Jesus Christ.
New Living Translation (NLT)

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of  Tyndale
House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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