Posted by
Jesse "The Mind" Norman on Sunday, April 13, 2008 4:10:00 AM
Many Christians in this generation are amped up awaiting God to send his angels and rapture all of the believers away before things get really bad, or sometime during the great Tribulation period. Christians seem to be waiting with their bags packed like God is going to take them away so they don’t have to be here to make a choice. “Don’t worry about the bad times ahead. We’ll all be gone!” I hate to say it to those who believe in this, but you’re wrong. Not only are you wrong with your beliefs, but your teachers are committing a great sin in teaching such a thing.
In Ezekial 13:20 it says that God will tear the flock away from those who teach their flock how to fly. Can’t get anymore direct than that. That is exactly what the teachers who teach the rapture are doing. Teaching their flock how to fly is the rapture teaching, and it’s wrong. It says it there plain as day. He’s not saying “don’t teach them how to fly a plane”. What else would it mean to speak against those who teach their flock how to fly? You rapture teachers and believers, explain that one to me.
“So why does it say in Luke 21:36 ‘Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.’?” Well there’s three things there to get to. One is how many of those who believe in the rapture taking them away have actually tried tracing such an important verse back to the Greek? The New Testament was originally written in Greek, afterall. In the original Greek, the word “escape” is the Greek word “εκφευγω” (ek-FYOO-goh) which literally means “to flee out from”. Second thing is notice it says “these things”, plural. It doesn’t say “this period of time” or anything that can be interpreted as such. If that’s what God meant it to say, then it would have said it that way. Third, to stand before the Son of man, which is Jesus of course. Jesus will come here, so those who are accounted worthy of surviving these judgments will be able to stand before Jesus. He’ll be here.
“What about 1st Thessalonians 4?” Well in 2nd Thessalonians, Paul corrects what he said previously to them in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 and 3. He said to not misinterpret his previous letter about an impending change.
Much of the Bible, and certainly the NT is there to prepare one’s spirit for troubled times and the end times. So why would all of these things be written just so the believers can escape? Here’s something to think about as well. In the last generation there will be more prophets living than at any time in this age’s history. That is a fact. The prophets will stay here to speak of God’s true word and to act as a counter to the Antichrist’s misinterpretations of the word of God. The prophets will be here and go through this time, so what makes a person, who’s not a prophet, to think they just get to escape? Why do people who God chose to be his prophets before the foundation of this age have to be here, but those who just chose Jesus in their life get to escape? What egos!