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The Christian Rapture
By Chris Schang
The Christian rapture is a glorious event whereby the Lord Jesus Chris comes down from Heaven into the air, calls up believers to join him, and takes them home in glory to Heaven. The Christian rapture is designed to reward church age believers for their steadfast belief in the promises of the Lord. But the Christian rapture is also designed to remove believers from the time and place of the coming wrath of God. The time of God's wrath is called the Tribulation period or the Time of Jacob's trouble. The place of the wrath of God is on the planet earth.
The Bible shows that through the age of mankind God has never poured out his wrath on the righteous. While natural man is born into a state of sin and unrighteousness, the fact is that believers in the completed work of Jesus Chris on the Cross are made righteous through their faith in Jesus. In other words, God's righteousness is imputed to believers so that in effect according to God he sees us as righteous as he is. This is an awesome display of God's love towards us as well as his mercy. We surely do not deserve it.
The Christian Rapture also teaches that once God gives the signal to his Son to fetch his bride - the church. Which is composed of both Jews and Gentiles, that Jesus will return in the air, call up believers both those dead and those alive at the time, and take them to the place he has prepared for his bride. Then afterwards, the marriage supper of the Lamb will commence and oh what a feast this shall be!! At this time as well we will meet Jesus at the Bema seat where we will be given crowns and rewards for out faithful service to the Lord since becoming saved.
The Christian rapture is a unique teaching from all the other religions. The Christian rapture is only found in Judeo-Christianity and is not mentioned in other religions. This unique promise from the Lord to keep his people from the time and place of the coming wrath of God is surely unique to only Christianity. Other religions are pagan in that they are not the Holy Spirit inspired from the Word of God. Most religions in the world today are man made religions based upon ancient traditions of pagans who worshiped idols and images of stone. These images where likely to be images of fallen angels who masqueraded as angels of light. This is definitely where we get ancient Greek mythology from. The Bible also mentions that the daughters of men mingled and married these fallen angels. They produced offspring of what we know where the men of renown. But despite the evil in the past and the coming wickedness in the coming tribulation period, we can have faith in the Christian rapture that will keep us from the strange evil that is currently in the world.
The Christian rapture is the blessed hope of the church, a promise from the Lord to take us to be where he is. This Christian rapture should be the highlight of every Christian's day as he waits in eager anticipation of the soon coming of the Lord for the church. In Revelation, John is told to come up hither which is seen as a foreshadow of the Christian rapture. One days soon, we too may here the wonderful trumpet of God followed by the words, Come up hither!! Oh Lord let it be today.
God bless.
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