Steps Of an Unknown Writer

Salvation is wonderful, awesome thing!  It was first built into the Plan of God before creation by the living God, the Triune and Holy God, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, revealed to us in Matthew 3:16-17, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!  It is the ultimate expression of God’s righteousness and great love for mankind, that He would, in the very beginning choose a people for His very own.  Man, in his fallen sinfulness needed God to save him from his sins and the wrath of God to come!  A covering of sins would not do year by year by year.  No, what was needed was total forgiveness of sins, something only God could do, something that would be done out of His love for us.

And so, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, His only begotten Son, from Spirit into the womb of Mary, to be born a man, fully God, fully man, in the flesh!  About 33 years later, the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ-Messiah, died a most horrific death on the cross for the sins of the world.  He was the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!  He was the perfect atonement, so that all who would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life with Him, in heaven, and on earth. 

And so it was, and so it is that out of the millions and billions of people to have lived on the earth in every century since this time, when Jesus, our Lord and Savior was resurrected from the dead and ascended up into heaven, that in this cold, dark, sinful world, approxomately only a quarter of the population (never half) come to a saving belief in Jesus Christ!  I wish it to be more!  I pray the Holy Spirit will convict to belief against the hardest of non-believers in all countries of the world!  But the enemy is constantly at work and never sleeps!  With all his lies, deceits, traps, murder, and blood lust, he has always gained a sizeable harvest of souls!  Whom will ye worship?  And how and when will ye worship?  

All God has done to save man is out of His great, great love for us, even beyond human understanding or comprehension.  Despite the evil and wickedness in the world, there is a love that transcends the limitless universe which God created and named every part.  It transcends the deepest ocean or the highest mountain.  It stirs the soul with wide-open arms and beckons us to come into the warm embrace of God’s eternal love.  It saves us from condemnation in our sins; it saves us from His holy, righteous judgment and the verdict of unbelief: the Lake of Fire, a place in the earth that burns forever in complete and total separation from God. 

But in Christ Jesus is life, and light, and truth, in love, both now and forever with Him into all eternity; and this, above all, shall be the calling of His love and the reward of belief.   

And God demonstrated this great, eternal love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

There is no greater love; it sounds throughout the ages as a giant trumpet in the clouds, sounding forth the greatest love call the world has ever known, the immensity of the limitless love of the outstretched arms of His embrace, the fathomless love of a Father for His Son, and His sons and daughters.  By this you shall know just how much God loves you:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

You can search the Scriptures and find countless examples of God’s great love; one can preach the greatest sermon and expound upon the love of God.  But nowhere, anywhere is this more profound than in the text of John 3:16.

How much does God really love us?  I can think of not a better illustration than that of Harry Moorehouse, of Dublin, Ireland, who, in Chicago, as a guest of Dwight L. Moody in 1867, preached seven sermons on John 3:16, with the message to sinners that God loves them! He wrote:

“My friends, I have been hunting all day for a new text, but I cannot find one as good as the old one; so we will go back to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse.” 

“And he preached the seventh sermon from that wonderful verse,” wrote Moody. 

Moody remembered the closing notes of that wonderful sermon.  He wrote:

“My friends, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue.  If I could borrow Jacob’s ladder, and climb up into heaven, and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, if he could tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be:

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”‘ 

Amen.

I awaken to a new day.  It’s a special day unlike yesterday, a day which the LORD has given; a day to look around and take in His wonderful creation, despite the evil and darkness and unbelief in God’s world today!  It is a special day to raise my hands upward and give Him my eternal, heartfelt thanks for my being here on earth, in this life, at this time in human history.  This most precious day of all days-yes, one more day to praise Him, the LORD God, for all the countless things He has done, and for all the innumerable blessing He has given us, His people.  And so, holding tightly to His hand in my heart, I walk the humble road set out before me. 

You see, I am not alone.  Though I walk what some might describe as “the lonely road,” I am truly surrounded by a feeling of His presence.  I am humbled at the thought of my Creator.  I think myself nothing special, but small, very small in His presence.  And this presence, and the Holy Spirit, nudges me to take in what I see, to see it all, as if drinking in this part of His creation.  I try to grasp how all creation works together.  I am left empty!  It is the TRINITY who sustains all and everything He created, everything the mind can behold, both the visible, and the invisible.  I am weak! 

I know He takes care of all the things He loves, and those who especially love Him.  I know this love and the love I have for my wife, my mother and father, my children and grandchildren, my brothers and sister, and all my relatives and friends and students…an eternal, never-failing love!   

I know something of this great love in the singing of the birds on a summer morning; I hear it at night in the harmonic sounds of the frogs and crickets praising God; I feel it in a soft breeze on my cheek, or witness the power of a surging wave on the beach at Kiawah.  I see it in the seasons of life, in the trees and their brilliant colors; the green grass, herbs and fruit trees.  I see it in a tiny seed with life in itself, each its own kind, that has fallen to the ground.  Soon, it buds and grows as a tender tree.  I understand His love in the vastness of the universe, and the working of the sun and moon and the very air we breath.  I think to myself, “Truly, this is an eternal reminder of God’s six days of creation! 

 I hear His love in passing a country church and listening to the people sing out their hearts in praise to God, the Holy Trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  I feel His love in a newborn baby and the love of its mother; I see it in the loving structure of a family, the parents and their children as they grow in the LORD.  And I see this wonderful love in the tender and patient time grandparents give to their children and grandchildren.  I understand it in the foundation of faith and belief as received in Christ’s church from the ancient catholic, apostolic church, the body of Christ.   

In my older age, I see His strength in my weakness, and then before me the realization that at the end of my life, these few, short years, will be the beginning of a new life forever with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.  I close my eyes in the knowledge of the coming of the first resurrection; for we shall be like Him, and then shall see Him face to face.  And I try to think beyond, to the thousand-year Messianic Kingdom on earth Christ shall establish when He returns with His angels and saints! Then will come the eternal order as He has planned, and so shall we ever be with the LORD.  I am overwhelmed! 

In my walk, I see the butterfly upon the sweet-smelling flowers, the bees and their steady work of pollination, and the nourishing honey of a hive.  I am surrounded by all of God’s creation, even all of the  company of heaven, and by my friends and family and church, but above all, by the mercy and love and grace of God, through His Son, the Lord, our Savior. 

As I walk, I try with all my mind and heart to remember some of the mighty works of God presented in His holy, written word, the Bible.  The thoughts and knowledge I have of that most sacred of all books, never leave me, but is my constant companion. 

“Tis the book of life, for life; Tis the book of light, for light; Tis the voice of Almighty God, written; Tis the book of Christ, settled forever in heaven.” 

I say out loud, “LORD, by your spoken word, everything was created and came into existence: heaven and earth, the sun and the moon and the stars; land and seas; grass and trees; fish and birds; land animals and man, who, created in Your image, began the long road of redemptive history in the drama of Your plan of salvation. How Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, died on the cross for the sins of the world and our salvation, was buried, and rose up from the dead the third day by His mighty resurrection.  Then, from the Mount of Olives, with the disciples looking on, Jesus ascended up to clouds and up to heaven.  You are there today, Lord, and seated at the right hand of the Father.  From there You will come again.”   

Sing praises to the LORD; tell the people of the mighty acts that He has done.  Remember, and tell them…

As I walk and look up to the heavens, I feel a sudden warmth that engulfs my body.  My steps feel light, as if I am walking on air.  

On I walk.  I remember, LORD.  I remember the names of Your Son, LORD: Yeshua-Jesus, and early in the Bible, YHVH, El Shaddai, and the great, “I AM.” He was the One who appeared to people in the Old Testament in the form of a man!  They could see Him.  He spoke to them, and they spoke to Him, and beheld Him, and touched Him.  When His mission was finished for that time,  He then disappeared from their sight, and went back to heaven with the Father, for He was Spirit.  He would return many times during the Old Testament history.  He would be known by many other names according to the circumstances.  They would hear His voice, especially His chosen prophets, who would repeat His words exactly, and say to the people:

“Thus saith the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name…the God of Israel…”  He is our God, the only One, the true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the LORD.

I remember, O Lord, these written words You spoke to the blessed prophet Jeremiah thousands of years ago in Jerusalem of Judah: 

“Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”   

 Shout out, my people, and declare His mighty works, in praise and thanksgiving.  Remember…just remember always:

How He spoke to Moses face to face on the mountain of Sinai, in Midian, in Arabia! And remember how He led Israel out of Egypt as their guide and protector?  And then how He saved them from destruction by Pharoah’s army at the Red Sea?  There He parted the waters and they stood up on either side  as a “heap,” and all the millions of Israel crossed over to safety on dry land.  But as the army followed, suddenly the waters crashed down upon them, and they sank like stones to the bottom, and were destroyed!  There, at the Red Sea, at what is today the Gulf of Aqaba, they did cross over, and You led them through the rough country of Midian to Mt. Sinai.  There, when Moses came up to the mountain, You spoke to him many days and nights, and wrote the Ten Commandments on stone tablets and gave them to Moses for the people of Israel.  I remember, Lord.  Blessed be the mighty, mighty acts of the LORD, so innumerable in number I can scarcely fathom.

Yet these mighty works are but a glimpse of Your power, Lord, and Your might and glory and the working of Your holy will and purpose, as determined long before creation.  I can hardly take in the majesty of all You have given for all to see and know.  

On my walk on the “lonely road,” I hear the thunder of Your mighty voice, the power of Your lightning that flashes across a dark sky.  I feel Your power in the wind.  I have seen the majestic formations of clouds that fill the sky and cast patterns of objects and stories and things.  I know of the ways You seek to get our attention.  The earth is Yours, and You control the weather and the storms, and the seas, the rain and sun. 

But let us look up, if only to look up.  For ” blessed is he who calls upon the name of the LORD; blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” 

With a steady stride my thoughts cry out: “Can a man ask of a greater company than what You have given me in a world of wonder and beauty, light and darkness, love and evil?”  Am I alone?  Hardly.  Truly, the heavens and earth declare Your glory, LORD!  And I, just a small, humble man walking the lonely road am filled with Your presence. 

“O, Worship the LORD our God in the beauty of holiness; LET ALL THE EARTH BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP HIM..” 

And as I walk, my steps remain unknown but to Thee, my Lord, my God.  Amen.

   God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost is love.  It is an eternal love that transcends our capacity to fully understand.  But He showed the greatest of it when He sent His Son, His only begotten Son to earth, to be born of a woman, fully God, fully Man.  And nothing anywhere, or anything, can eclipse God’s love for us, in heaven, on earth, and into eternity.  The most glorious words of the Holy Bible, found in  the Gospel of John, Chapter three, verse 16, and Chapter fifteen, verse 13: 

For GOD so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

   John’s love was from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.  It was manifested in him and through him, radiating outward. It is that same process in us all today, some twenty centuries later, despite the world we live in, who are in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  It was seen in John’s ministry of his church to his “little children.” It was most evident at Ephesus and in Asia Minor and it resonated across the ages in the life and words of the Messiah in the writing of The Gospel According to John.  And further evidenced in in his last writings, John I, II, and III and finally, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ.  It proclaims His love for us in His plan of salvation that will one day come to fulfillment.

   Jesus chose John.  He was the “beloved disciple” who rested his head upon the breast of Jesus at the last supper, on the night He was betrayed. 

   John was the last Apostle to die.  He had been with the Lord since the beginning of his ministry.  John walked with God, he talked with God, he saw firsthand the love of the Father in Jesus.  And so, John’s love grew.

   Imagine all the wonderful things John learned from Jesus.  Later, following Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, everything became clearer.  John learned from the greatest Teacher the world has ever known the true meaning of love:  compassion, mercy, forgiveness, meekness, humbleness and prayer. He saw truth, light and life as only God could display these great attributes in abounding love, love the world cannot give nor understand. 

   John learned what Paul had written, that “who can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord?”  He knew that we in Christ can never be separated from the love of God, no matter what! 

   John was witness of God’s perfect love on the Mount of “Transfiguration,” where he saw the eternal Christ in all His glory, with Moses and Elijah, a foreshadowing of the “things to come.”

   John beheld the love of God during Christ’s Passion and His death on the cross at Calvary.  Then, three days later, he saw the risen Christ!  And right then and there, John knew the miracle of the resurrection that awaited him and His beloved at a future date.   

   On the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem, John saw Christ ascend up to the clouds and to heaven.  He remembered the promise that Jesus said that He would always be with them, how He said He would send the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of the love of God and of all things Jesus had taught.

   And so John died in old age and went on to be with the LORD.

   Take a look at our world today.  Even as the world grows colder and darker, where is there the love as Christ taught?  It should be evident in the way Christians treat one another in caring, compassion and giving.   We should be loving our neighbors as ourselves, for love is of God.

   But our country is changing, and the love of many is fading. 

   How is it then our love shall be steadfast?

   John spelled it out to his churches, his “little children,” when he wrote: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

   John calls us beloved, for we are in Christ, the love of the Father. 

   You say, “Do I know God?”

   “Do you love your neighbor?”

   “Yes, very much.”

    “Then you know God, for in loving, you are born of Him, for the LORD God is pure love, and has always been, is now, and ever shall be.”

   “Do you think it was our idea to love God?”

   “No.”

   “So then it was God’s doing, for He first loved us and demonstrated His eternal love for us that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.”

   And as we love Christ, so we love the Father, and His love is perfected in us as we grow to love one another.

   We have no fear, for love casts out fear.

   We become bold for the Gospel as our love is manifested.

   If we hate our brother, and say we love God, we are liars.  For how can we hate our brother who we have seen, and say we love God who we have not seen?

   God is love, not hate.  God is all truth, not a lie.  Where there is hate, there is not God; there is not love.

   God’s love gives us the boldness to overcome.

   “Did not God command Moses to say to the children of Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one Lord: and thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

   Then remember what Jesus said to the Pharisee who asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

   Jesus said unto him, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.”

   “And the second is like unto it: Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.”

   “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

   With God’s help, let us strive with our whole being to love the Lord, our God, as we live to love our neighbor, and to truly love one another.

   John leaves us with these eternal words:

“And this commandment have we from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”  – I John 4:21

Amen.  

   I am linked to the past and the early Celtic Christianity of these British Isles.  In the 7th century A.D., and from the misty island of Iona came missionaries to the Picts of Scotland and the Anglo-Saxons of northern England spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  There is not a day that passes by that I do not ponder these great men and the impact they had in those early centuries of church history.  One has been on my mind of late: 

   He was known as Aidan, or St. Aidan of Lindisfarne.  He was born in Ireland in 580 and died in 651 A.D on the island of Lindisfarne, also known as “Holy Island.”  In 635, at the request of King Oswald of Northumbria, Aidan came as a missionary to the pagan “Angles”  of that region (we got the word “English” from the word “Angleish”) after an earlier missionary monk by the name of Corman had given up, saying that they were too uncivilized and stubborn to be taught! 

   On Lindisfarne Aidan built a school, a mission, and a church.  From Lindisfarne Aidan walked from village to village, meeting people and teaching them about God’s Son.  He loved the joy of speaking with people as he met them, eye to eye.  It was his greatest love to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He baptized, married, and buried in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  His gentleness and humbleness, his quiet demeanor brought out the best in people eager to talk to him, and eager to hear about the Living God who sent His Son to walk among men, and to save all who came to believe in Him. 

   Aidan was in awe of God’s power and greatness, as he saw a glimpse of this on Lindisfarne with the coming in and going out of the tides.  He wrote:

Leave me alone with God as much as may be.  As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore, Make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you. 

Then with the turning of the tide prepare me to carry Your presence to the busy world beyond, the world that rushes in on me till the waters come again and fold me back to You.   

   Let us, like St. Aidan, seek out God again and again through prayer; and, like the constant motion of the waves and the coming and going of the tide upon the shore, know that the coming in and going out of our prayers and thanks, as often as we would, He hears us and loves us forever.  Amen

What do you believe? What is a Christian? What separates us from all other religions? How are we to express our faith? If someone asked you to express the belief that makes you a Christian, how would you respond? Well, I would look them right in the eye, and with all my heart, mind and strength recite that very ancient and trusted CREED, the foundation of our faith:

I BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried:  He descended into hell; The third day He rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty:  From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost: The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints: The Forgiveness of sins: The Resurrection of the body: And the Life everlasting.  Amen.

Years ago, people in the church would be required to sign a pledge affirming their belief. Today, in our divided church, in an age of wavering, and indecision, half-hearted belief, undermining the very foundation of our faith in Jesus and who He is, there comes a complete body of misdirection and misinterpretation of the prophetic books of Scripture, and the Gospels and Epistles: what is taught and what is not, and, lastly, the comes a cleverness of mental gymnastics, for example, of trying to put other “religions” on equal footing with Christianity! Well, just don’t get caught up in the tangle web and lose sight of the one thing that matters the most above all: just what do you believe and hold to? Now is the time! Sign the Apostle’ Creed in your heart with all your mind, and with all your strength. Never let go. Never! And when someone asks you what you truly believe, you will be ready. May it always be so. Amen.  

   Early morning.  Storms have battered the island for the past two days.  Monk has lit the candles and is sipping grog.  A knock on the door.

   Brother Monk, are you awake?

   Yes.  Just waking up.

   Missed you in the dinning hall, so I brought you some bread and eggs and some rather strong coffee.  We have all heard of your letters!

   Thank you, brother monk.

   Here, let me help you get settled.  Yes, your ink and quill, just over there?  Right.  Well, I best be going.  See you at vespers?  By the way, this little book from America came yesterday addressed to you. 

  Thank you ever so much, brother monk.

  I wonder who knows of me so far away, in America, and why they would send this little book?  Let’s see now; well, bless me Lord, it appears to be a book of daily devotionals, “Our Daily Bread.” 

  As he thumbs through the pages, he happens upon an entry dated May 28, 2012, titled, “The Gathering.”  He is quiet.  Then a great roar of joy:

  Glorious Jesus, my Savior; someone in America has received one of my letters and responded!  Well, I never dreamed….

   That’s it!  I shall share its contents and add my thoughts.  Yes, there it is then.  Letter upon letter as the ebb and flow of the tides…

   The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd us and lead us to living fountains of water. -Revelation 7:17

   During Oswald Chambers’ service as a YMCA chaplain in Egypt (1915-1917), he touched the lives of many soldiers who died in  World War I.  On November 6, 1916, Chambers wrote in his diary: “We have a letter from  New Zealand friend telling us that Ted Strack has been killed.  And so Ted Strack has ‘gone to be with Jesus.’  That is just how he would have put it…He was a rough beauty of nature and of grace, a fearless, loveable little saint.  Thank God for every remembrance of him…So they are gathering one by one.”

   From the first century of our Lord Jesus until today and beyond, Jesus has been gathering the saints (true believers in Jesus Christ), their souls at death, one by one to Himself in heaven.  There they are gathered together with all those souls who have passed on before in death, one by one by one, not all at the same time, but in His time, one by one: countless billions of souls/spirits there now waiting for us!  What a revelation: the gathering before the Rapture is, as the Lord has determined, “ONE BY ONE,” even as it was yesterday, so it will be today and tomorrow, until the day of the “Rapture!”  

   That great event is still future, and perhaps sooner than we think.  But when that great event happens, the next great event in human history, the Lord Jesus will come out of heaven at the trumpet roar, just above the clouds, and gather the dead and living unto Himself-not ‘one by one,’  but all together and at the same time, where, gathered together to Him in the air, we shall follow Him up to heaven: and so so shall we ever be with the Lord! 

  Let us praise God Almighty for His great plan of salvation in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, The Messiah.  What a plan! What a God we have.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.  Amen

   I was comforted last night just before a deep sleep was beginning to take hold, and I saw, in my mind’s eye, the Lord Jesus and His angel coming for His saints; comforted, I fell asleep, secure in the knowledge that we shall ever be with the Lord! 

   And now it is the morning of the second day; I must continue my work, for darkness comes to these shores quickly.

   We are now in the 1,979 th year of our Lord in what is known in Christendom as, ‘The Church Age, and The Age of Grace,” the period of history when the church was founded in the year our Lord Jesus ascended up to heaven, on Pentecost, 33 A.D.  He sent the Holy Spirit to minister to believers.  Ever since then, as the Father calls, and the Holy Spirit convicts, myriads of people have come to believe.  And so shall it be right up to the time of the Rapture, which  could happen at any moment, for the “signs” are ripe!

   Now the doctrine of the “Rapture” is set forth by Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verses 1-6.  They were gathered together in the Upper Room, preparing to eat the Passover bread, when Jesus dropped two verbal bombshells on His disciples, saying that one would betray Him, and another would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed!

   Then Jesus said,

   Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

   And where I go you know, and the way you know.

Thomas said unto Him, we know not where You go; and how can we know the way?

   Jesus said unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man comes unto the Father, but by Me.

   And in I Thessalonians, the doctrine of the Rapture is set forth as the most defining Rapture text in the New Testament:

I Thessalonians 4:13-18

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

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 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 trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall 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.        

Other comforting words:

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. – Philippians 3:20-21 

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you 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.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that shall not come, except that there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; – I Thessalonians 2:1-2   

   So there you have it, beloved, as plain as could be, as clear as the day…as the Lord God intended for us to know in these troublous times. 

   May Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit bless you always, and may you believe.  Amen.

   There are several raps on the door of his cell.  It is a small dark room with only a table, chair, and bed; the only light is a candle. 

   Enter.

   Ah, brother monk, thou who prays and works without ceasing!  Thou, whose steps are as yet unknown, who have asked to see me?

   Father, I seek your advice.

   Ask.

   My letters have gone far and wide, and I do not crave a reply.

   What then?

   It is on my heart.  I must tell my brothers and sisters in Christ where we are today…what the next event the Scriptures tell us must certainly happen next!

   How do you mean?

   My heart and soul longs to tell them things I have discovered that the church today does not teach. 

  I see.  You would tell them a chronology then, a starting point of the faith?

   Yes, your holiness, and more.  I desire to tell them before it’s too late the next great event to occur in world history as our Lord and Savior, Jesus taught, and the apostles, too.  I would tell them what the Holy Bible says of this event…it’s right there, if only they would believe!  I believe they ought to know.

   Then, my son, you have my blessings.  May the Good Lord bless you and guide you in your work, through His Holy Spirit, brother monk. 

     The Doctrine of the Rapture of the Church

   In the year of our Lord 33, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God died on the cross for our sins, then rose from the dead on the third day.  He ascended into heaven, where He is today, with the Father.  And He promised that one day He will come again for His church, those who truly believe all that is written of Him. 

   The Holy Bible tells us Messiah-the Christ will come two times: the first has already been fulfilled as written; the second awaits future fulfillment, also as written.  When He comes the second time, it will be as the warrior King, in great power and glory, followed by His armies of resurrected saints and the angels of heaven.  When He comes, He shall establish His Kingdom at Jerusalem and He shall reign over the whole earth for a thousand years!  Those on the earth at this time shall see many, many signs and events that must take place before the Second Coming. 

   But the event I speak of here, the next great event in history has no signals, no signs or events that must be accomplished before it can take place!  No, the event I speak of is “imminent,” that is, it could take place at any moment, without warning. 

   It is known in the New Testament as the “rapture.”  We get the word “rapture” from the Greek word, “harpazo,” and from the Latin, “rapturo.”  It means this: “to be caught up suddenly; to snatch up with great force,” something only God can do.

   Now the word “rapture” is not found in the Holy Bible, but neither is “trinity,” “fall of man,” “depravity,” etc., but the truth, the doctrine, the teaching is there. 

   The “rapture” is not and never was to be confused with the Second Coming of Christ!  When we speak of the Second Coming, we mean that the glorified Lord Jesus will come back to the earth, and set His foot on the earth!  Whereas, at the rapture, Jesus will come out of heaven to the clouds above the earth and raise the dead first-those who believed in Him; then, all those who are Christ’s and alive at that time shall be changed to immortality, and immediately join Christ in the air with the resurrected ones, and follow Him back to heaven.

   The Rapture has not happened yet.  But it could happen at any time.  Perhaps today? 

  Part II of this writing will deal with the doctrine itself-the Scriptures that speak of the coming “rapture.”

  Alas, I must retire; the night grows long, my candle is spent, and there is no more ink for my quill.  I bid you a good night and fare thee well.  

   On the third day He arose again from the dead!  He was resurrected from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, in a new, glorified, immortal, imperishable body, the firstfruits of those who will follow in the near future.  To us in the believing church, we call this future event we so fervently look to, as the “Rapture,” “harpazo,” the second phase of the 1st Resurrection of believers in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  This glorious event will take place before God pours out His righteous wrath upon the earth on  unbelieving mankind.  This will be the next great event after the Rapture known in the Scriptures as the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble,” and the “Great Tribulation!” 

   For those of you who teach it has already taken place (Preterists), I can only ask, “What book are you reading? and, what are you smoking to be so deluded?”  To those who insist on the believing church going through half or all of th Tribulation, I can only say that you most wrongly interpret the Bible!  If you, indeed, hold and teach this position, then you best get a hard hat, a shovel and some ammunition, cause you’re gonna need it!  Most who come to Christ during this horrible time will be killed for their faith, Jews and Gentilers alike, or have you not read and believed the Revelation of Jesus Christ?

   The Church, the believing body of Christ Jesus, will not go through any part of it, not even one hour or day or month or year, of this terrible ‘unprecedented’ seven-year event, the 70th Week of Daniel’s amazing prophecy that awaits fulfillment-the “Great Tribulation!”  If you ever read and believed the books of Daniel and the Revelation of the Holy Bible, you would know the future!  

   And so it was on the Passover Feast, during a full moon, in the month of early April. that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (The Messiah), as it is written, suffered greatly and horribly, was crucified by being nailed to the cross, died, was buried and sealed in a rich man’s rock tomb, and then rose gloriously from death on the third day, the year being 33 A.D.  He was about 33-36 years of age.  In our historic, sequential, chronological timeline, about 4,033 years have expired to this point.  Thus the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, “THE SEED OF THE WOMAN,” and all subsequent prophecies of the Holy Bible about His 1st Coming were fulfilled as written to the minute!

   Now the time from His resurrection until His ascension was 40 days.  During this period, many held Him, touched Him, spoke with Him, ate and drank with Him.  On the very first day of His resurrection, He appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb; after speaking with Mary, He ascended into Heaven to the Father and quickly returned.  Upon His return to earth, He again appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary; then to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus; then to Peter in Jerusalem; then to the ten disciples in the Upper Room; then, one week later, to the eleven disciples, Thomas being present, also in the Upper Room; later, to the seven disciples fishing on the Sea of Galilee; next He appeared to the eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee; to more than 500 believers; to James; and at His ascension before His disciples from the Mount of Olives.  

   Not many days later, He sent His Holy Spirit upon them and many thousands of others, on the day of Pentecost, in Jerusalem, they believed and were saved-thousands, in the year 33 A.D.  Thus, on this most holy day, the church of Jesus Christ was born!  Years later, He appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, and in 95 A.D., to His beloved disciple, John, exiled on the island of Patmos by Domitian.  John saw Jesus again, but this time much different from who he saw in 33 A.D., and upon hearing and seeing the ascended Lord Jesus, fell at His feet as if dead!  It was during this time that Jesus gave to John to write all the things he heard and saw, the “Revelation of Jesus Christ,” the last message of Jesus to His church, and the future “things to come.”   

   Twenty centuries have passed since this time.  I mark 1,979 years since His Resurrection and Ascension, and 1,917 years since John wrote the Revelation, the last book of the Holy Bible.  By the way, I calculate about 6,012 years to the present, since Creation, counting year one for the creation by God of Adam, the first man.  And so in our chronology, our timeline of events in human history, we are living in that time from the Cross of Christ-His death, resurrection, and ascension, from 33 A.D. to the present time, known as the “Age of Grace,” or the “Church Age.”  The next great event to happen will be the “Rapture” of the Church, those us who truly believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ.  This even is “imminent,” it could happen at any time, perhaps even today, and there will be no signs, no events that will proceed it or signal it to happen!  After that, there will be many signs- events that usher in the beginning of the “Great Tribulation!”  At the end of these future seven years of hell on earth, the Lord Jesus will appear in the clouds, shinning like the sun, in power, majesty, glory, and might: the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, He will be followed by His armies of angels and saints to the earth to set up His Messianic Kingdom on earth, and He shall reign for a thousand (1,000) years, and then, forever into eternity!  

   So let us rejoice in this most blessed Day of Ascension by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, the Son of Man.  Let us give eternal thanks that 40 days after His glorious resurrection  and mighty ascension, He ascended to the Third Heaven, where He is today, seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, our great High Priest, making all things ready for that great day to come!  

   Let us rejoice and give thanks for the eternal life to come in Christ Jesus, for we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him face to face.  Let us remember those most blessed 40 days and His ascension, and that we, too, shall follow, so that where He is, there we shall be also.  Therefore, comfort one another with these words.  Amen.

   She is known as the founder of “Mothers Day.”  During the Civil War, she penned the famous words for ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  She is the renowned Julia Ward Howe, born in 1819 and died in 1910.  Her story is an amazing revelation that GOD Almighty was pleased to give her at a time in American history, when our country was torn apart by war that would decide the fate of the nation.  Here is her story: 

   During a public review of troops outside Washington, D.C. on Upton Hill, Virginia in 1861, Julia Ward Howe and her escort, the Reverend James Freeman Clark, heard the soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body,”, a favorite marching song of the troops, as they passed in review where Abraham Lincoln stood.  Later that day, she met Abraham Lincoln at the White House.  The Reverend Clark suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men’s song.  Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe vividly remembered:

“I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly.  I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind.  Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’  So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before.  I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862.  Here then are the words to the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” words that speak of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the truth of the ages that marches on, as we render praise to God Almighty:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah (praise God)! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

Glory. glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. 

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory on the morning on the wave, He is wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on.