Because He Loves Us

April haas passed. Yet amid the horrors of war, the confusion of culture, and the ugliness of crime, we Christians remember and celebrate the great love of God in the miracle of Easter Sunday, the third day, when our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, arose from the dead in a new, physical, immortal, glorious body suited for Heaven. And as we look back on this great, loving act of God, we remember that the resurrection of Jesus took place almost 2,000 years ago in the year 33 A.D., in a place called Judea, in the city of Jerusalem where our Lord was crucified and died on the cross not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world! Because He lives, we shall also live with Him. Because He was resurrected from the grave, we also will be resurrected from the grave. And because He received a new, immortal, glorious body, so also on that day we shall receive a changed, new, immortal, glorious body. Some day soon, and more, much, much more, as the Holy Bible tells us, we believing Christians will receive His promises and blessings “BECAUSE HE LOVES US,” that’s why.

What does the Word of God, the Holy Bible tell us to be looking for ? To be waiting for and expecting? Why, His 2nd Coming of course! But not His glorious coming back to earth physically, riding on the clouds, in great power and might, shinning like the sun, on a great white horse, followed by the armies of angels and Church saints, also riding on white horses, as Revelation, chapter 19 tells us, and every person on earth shall see Him and mourn, and Israel, the surviving remnant shall believe on Him whom they crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, now coming as THE KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS! It is the time when He shall reign on earth in the Kingdom of God for a thousand years. No, that future event will be preceded by the seven year Great Tribulation of God’s wrath-judgment poured out on the unbelieving people on earth at that time as written in chapters 6-18 in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book of the Holy Bible. And then He will come.

But before the Great Tribulation spoken of in Daniel, chapter 9, and Matthew, chapters 24-25, and Revelation 6-18, and the rise of Satan’s son, the abominable Antichrist, these future seven years that will be like no other in all the history of mankind, another even greater event will take place before this can happen. An event that will happen in an instant that no one will see when the believing Church will be caught up in the clouds not meet the Lord Jesus in the air above the clouds! Yes, it is really going to happen! It is called the blessed hope of the Church, something the early Church and the centuries following that all Christians have longed for: Jesus gathering all His believers to Himself and taking us to Heaven to the Father. This glorious event is called the Rapture of the Church as Jesus told us in John, chapter 14:1-14, and as the great apostle Pail amplified in revealing this great mystery in I Corinthians, chapter 15: 49-58 and I Thessalonians 4:13-18…the three great pillars of the truth of the Rapture when Christ will gather us together to meet Him “in the air above the clouds.” And so shall we ever be with the Lord!

The Holy Spirit speaks of this next great event in this time we live in, the Church Age-the Age of Grace (whereby God has been calling people all over the world to His Son in confessing Jesus as Lord) as “imminent,” that is, that it could happen at any moment-even today! That is why we Christians are to be looking up, watching, waiting and doing the Lord’s work ’till He comes,’ for we do not know the hour or the day, but only the Father in Heaven. I believe God has a perfect number of all who will be saved, and I believe when that number is up, when the last person shall believe, then shall God, the Father say to Jesus, “Son, go get my Church!” And that will be the Rapture!

The Holy Bible tells us that God has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by the coming of our Lord Jesus. Sadly, there are too many Christians who dismiss, even do not believe in the Rapture, or that we must go through the Tribulation before Jesus will come and rescue us and take us to Heaven. Is that right? Is that what Jesus promised His Bride, His Body, the believing Church? Would He execute judgment on His believing Church along with the mass of unbelieving, God hating peoples of the earth during this future time as prophesied in the Holy Bible in Revelation, chapters 6-18? I don’t think so! You see, there will be many signs and wonders and supernatural events and things that must take place before His 2nd Coming, but there will be no signs and wonders before the Rapture can take place…for it could happen at any moment-even today…right now! Are you ready? Are you joyfully and eagerly looking and praying and hoping for that soon and coming day that must surely come, for Jesus promised, when we shall hear the command of Jesus with the voice of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God…the “Last Trumpet,” as He said in John 14 and will fulfill as the words of I Thessalonians 4:13-18 tells us…listen to what Paul said:

“But I would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord Himself shall 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 which are alive and remain hall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

I believe. I teach. I am comforted. I do not worry about the world and events and man.

Jesus, the One who testifies of all Scripture, said: ‘Surely I come quickly. Amen.”

John replied: “Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” -Revelation 22:20-21

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen.