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What follows is a paper written after I was asked to discuss my position regarding the Rapture or the Return of Christ. It is a bit lengthy, but I trust it will be stimulating in that my views have changed since I first took the Foundational Class on Power for Abundant Living forty years ago.
"The Rapture or the Return of Christ: Articulating My Position"
Whether referred to as “the Rapture” or “the Gathering Together,” or somewhat irreverently called “the Big Snatch,” Christ’s Return has been a passion of my heart for more than 40 years, and lately this “enduring flame” seems to be burning even more brilliantly, since I have participated in or officiated at numerous funerals during that time. Sometime ago the question was raised as to where I stood with regard to the Return (Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, or Post-Trib). I was asked if I believed that the Christ’s Return would occur before the Great Tribulation or during the Great Tribulation or after the Great Tribulation had begun. This question caused me to assess my position and motivated me to respond more fully to the question as to where I stand regarding this issue.
Without question I believe that the Return of Christ is imminent. This bright hope is one of the threads woven through my most recent collection of poetry Stone upon Stone: Psalms of Remembrance. In the title poem I build an altar of twelve stones of great significance in my life. The twelfth stone is described this way:
Final stone of hope, capstone to complete my life,
standing on tip-toe, awaiting the golden note,
blessed hope of Christ’s appearing in my lifetime.
Such a belief indicates that I would be categorized as a “Pre-Trib” believer, that is, I believe that Christ will return before The Great Tribulation period. After considerable deliberation, however, I must admit that “I am Pre-Trib with modification.” Allow me to elaborate.
In 1998 I sensed that Christ was going to return during the Feast of Pentecost, based on my reading of the Scriptures and a series of Biblical teachings by Marilyn Agee. Although I have continued to look for Christ to return with eager anticipation, I have tempered my desire to know precisely when the Rapture will take place. The poem “If the Lord tarries. . .” reveals a change in attitude following a number of times when the Return of Christ did not occur when I had thought it would.
“If the Lord tarries” and “If the Lord will”:
May these phrases ever be my preface.
With each decision may I learn to be still
And never presume to know your desire.
Though I may read your Word and apply
It diligently to my heart to do
All you ask of me, some secrets are not
Mine to know. Once more you tell me to watch,
To prepare my heart and to look above.
Whether I understand or misconstrue,
I cannot deny I have tasted of your love.
God is still faithful and His Word is true.
In my heart the hope continues to burn,
As yearn even more for Christ’s return.
Clearly “no man knows the day nor the hour”; however, following the description of the Gathering Together in Chapter 4:13-18, the Fifth Chapter of I Thessalonians begins with a reminder:
But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write you.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
For when they shall say, “Peace and safety;” then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night nor of darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.
We are also exhorted “to watch” “And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”(I Thessalonians 1:10) In Luke 21:29-36, Jesus said, “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.”
In our emphasis upon what has been characterized as a “new season”, we must remember that the Return of Christ could actually usher in the fullness of that “new season.” In my mind this is “the finish” toward which we are all striving. In his teaching series on “The Rapture of the Church”, Dr. David Jeremiah made the statement that in Bible times before the arrival of a king, ambassadors were sent to prepare the way and announce his arrival. In a similar manner we have been sent as “Ambassadors for Christ” to herald the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will gather us together in Him to reign on high forevermore.
Herein lies one of the modifications of my “Pre-Trib” belief. Without question, I believe that Christ will return to gather “his bride.” But in a similar way that Eve, the first bride, was taken from the body of the “First Adam,” so the “Second Eve,” the “Bride of Christ” will be taken from the Body of Christ, the “Second Adam.”
Incidentally Eve was taken out of Adam on the evening of the last day, the 30th, of the month of Elul. During this month the trumpet (shofar) is sounded every day to warn the people to return to God in repentance except on the last day. On that day there is silence in anticipation of the coming Feast of Trumpets which commences the following day, Rosh Hashana, which marks the New Year, both the civil year and the religious year in Jewish culture. Psalm 81:3 refers to this time:
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
When Jesus said, “No man knows the day or the hour” in Matthew 24:36, to the Western mind, this saying is said to mean no one knows when Messiah will return. To the Jewish mind, however, this phrase was an idiom referring to Rosh Hashana, meaning that Christ will return at some future Rosh Hashana. Sometimes called Yom HaKeseh, which means the Day of Hiding or the Hidden Day, Rosh Hashana is derived from the Hebrew root “kacah” which means to conceal, cover or hide.
So what I’m saying is that there will be “two raptures,” one of which is spoken of in terms of Noah, who represents a type of rapture that is mentioned in Matthew 24:37-39:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
The extraction of the Bride, this “falling away” from the Body represents God’s judgment on the Church. As I Peter 4:17 declares, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” This judgment will be a wake-up call to the Church to repent and to change to become what God intended for her to be. In order not to be left behind when Christ returns again, the Church will correct herself and align herself to be in God’s will.
The taking away of the bride of Christ will actually stimulate great growth and development. In a similar way that pruning a tree produces more abundant fruit, so will the purging be comparable to that which Jesus spoke of in John 15:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
In a sense, those gathered from the Body of Christ could represent “a kind of firstfruits,” (James 1:18) spoken of in I Corinthians 15:20-23:
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
If part of the Body of Christ is raptured with the first appearing of Jesus Christ, what about those who remain? Is there another phase to the Rapture or will those who remain have to endure the Tribulation in its entirety? Jesus speaks of this time before his coming in terms of Lot as well as Noah. The extraction of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah is another type of rapture, the Pre-wrath Rapture.
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Remember Lot's wife. (Luke 17:28-32)
The second part of the Return of Christ involves what has been described as the Pre-Wrath Rapture, which will occur on “The Day of God” or “The Millennial Day of the Lord.” This event is referred to in Revelation 16:14 which says, “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” There is a reference to Gog’s army of Ezekiel 38 and that the Lord will fight for Israel. This time frame is also mentioned in II Peter 3:12: “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” The Pre-Wrath Rapture precedes the Day of the Lord “in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heart, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” (Revelation 8:8-10 and Zephaniah 2:3-5 speak of the asteroid that will impact the earth as a demonstration of God’s wrath on this day)
One of the most revealing parables regarding the Rapture or the Return is that of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), five of whom were wise and five of whom were foolish. Sometime ago I read a fascinating discussion of this parable in Be the Bride: Volume 3, a wonderful treatise by Daniel Rydsted on the Rapture or the Return from the perspective of individuals in the Body of Christ preparing themselves for the Return of the Bridegroom for his beloved. It was one of those life-changing works that challenged and charged the reader literally to strive to fulfill the title of the book and “Be the Bride.”
There are countless facets to the Return of Christ. One of the fascinating connections centers on Moses and Elijah, both of whom appear with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration along with Peter, James and John. That appearing can be viewed as a foreshadow of the gathering together, in that the encounter involves both an individual who died, Moses, as well as one who was “caught up to heaven” while he was alive, Elijah. I am, thus, in the process of closely examining the records of the Transfiguration from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and I am attempting to connect those accounts with the Rapture of the Church.
I have by no means offered a full discussion of the Rapture or the Return of Christ and its various facets, but I have attempted to generate a discussion of some of my views on the subject. In actuality I have not even begun to scratch the surface. I am grateful to have been inspired to think more deeply about the subject and to attempt to express my views that I am still in the process of clarifying. God’s Word ever exhorts us to patiently wait for Christ’s Return, and I close on that hopeful note:
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith. . . (Hebrews 10:35-38)
Lonnell E. Johnson
Columbus, Ohio
January 1, 2008
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Comments
My sentiments completely.I am afraid you lost me long ago Matt.
Bless, Paddy Heron
Ok, so YOU are assessing YOUR postition which motivated YOU to respond more fully to the questions as to where YOU stand regarding this issue.
Matt- I am sorry but I am not sure this site is the place for you to explain your position on this subject. I mean this is deeper than most people care about I think. Perhaps you could summarize your position succunctly rather than go on on on about this subject. Others have not responded, This is not necessarily a teaching or preaching platform.
Be considerate of others man..
This is a very long blog and I, for one do not have the time required to absord such a monumental piece of work. Not sure others do either. However, I admit, I have not been paying much attention. Are you providing this info for someone who has asked for it?
I might suggest you consider a site like Blogspot.com which may be more suited for your research.
So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in one God the Father, the only unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten son, our Lord and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him (so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God); and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49) and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8); being neither God (the Father) nor our God (Christ), but the minister of Christ ... subject and obedient in all things to the Son; and the Son, subject and obedient in all things to God who is his Father ... (whom) he ordained in the Holy Spirit through his Christ.[7]
Ulifa was a prophet of God and an apostle ordained to teach the Goths - He was called the apostle to the Goths and his ministry served to fulfill the Word of God.
His ministry was not taught to the Way Corps - neither is taught anywhere. But without understanding his ministry you cannot put together the Word of God even as it applies to the coming of the Son of Man and the prophesies of the book of Revelation. He was a big deal for God.
To the the Goths - he was their Moses - as 200,000 of them stood on the North Shores of the Danube River.
As Moses stood on the Shores of the Reed Sea so many thousands of years ago - with the enemy behind him and the sea before him - and the Promises of God to fulfill ahead of him - So did Fridergern - the Christian Chief and his apostle stand on the North Side of the Danube - with the locusts (The Huns) behind him and the fertile plain and the Lord's destiny ahead. Jesus Christ was directing the show.
So who was Ulifa and why do we not know about him?
Before this crossing an apostle came - sent from the True Church and his apostleship was like Paul's - hundreds of years ago - its impact was beyond what was even seen in the First Century Church.
His apostleship converted the German tribes into Christians - no they were not Barbarians but Christians because of the ministry of this one great apostle - walking with the Lord unlike no man since the Apostle Paul.
The Word of God prevailed in many ways not known or understood because the Catholic Church and the History Books have never talked about it.
Thus we are ingorant and believe that God's Word did not prevail past the first century - but it did and that with whole power of God's spirt in manifestation - a power that swept the Goths and the Vandals and even tamed the Huns. Yes the fastest spread of God's truth is history.
I will now talk a little about the prevailing of the Word among these ancient Germans - and there is a written record - for this apostle is the first to translate the Word of God into a mother tongue and he had to invent the language in the written form.
Matt Miller
I have taken my comments from a very well received book by Joel Richardson called "Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah." This book has been endorsed by many former Muslims including Reza F. Safa, Mansour Khalil and Walid Shoebat and other Islamic scholars. In it he quotes many times from the Islams holy writings including the Koran. They seem to accept his book as accurate.
Although I do not believe he is correct in his central thesis, nevertheless one can glean many gems from his work.
By the way, my name is Paddy and not Patty.
When the Antichrist comes, I presume he will be accepted by the Jews as the true Messiah for they are still waiting for him to arrive.
Paddy
What I find interesting about end times Muslim prophesies is that they are similar and seem to mirror, those of the Bible. That is, they believe the Mahdi or 12th Imam will ascend out of a hole in the ground and lead Islam to a series of victories over her enemies and establish Islam as the main world religion.
When Mahdi arrives, he will have as his right hand man and lieutenant, Jesus Christ. This is what their prophesies say. Revelation also tells us there will be two main protagonists during the Apocalypse. The Antichrist and the False Prophet. The word 'anti' means literally "instead of". Therefore Anti-Christ literally means "instead of Christ". Many believe that the Mahdi will be the Antichrist. Not so.
His name is not 'anti-Mahdi' or 'anti-Imam'.
When he comes he will be claiming that he is Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself told us this in Matt 24:4
"Many shall come in MY NAME...saying I AM CHRIST."
The Beast with two horns, otherwise known as the False Prophet, is possibly the Mahdi or 12th Imam. For in the Koran it prophesies that the Mahdi will have as his lieutenant, Jesus Christ. Is that a coincidence?
Why do the prophecies from the Bible and the Koran seem similar. Well according to Mohamed, a "bright shinning angel" dictated the Koran to him. This happened several hundred years after the Book of Revelation was written. Now Satan knows Scripture better than all of us do and he is much more clever than any human. See how he could quote verbatim from the Psalms when he invited Jesus to jump off the Temple. So he knows whats coming down the tracks from revelation. So he concocts his own prophecies and apes a lot of those in Revelation to make them plausible. Thus he has two main men: the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Satan is transformed into an "angel of light". This is who dictated the Koran to Mohamed.
The Muslims believe that their 12th Imam will be the main leader with Jesus as his right hand man. Scripture tells us the he who comes in the name of Christ will have the False Prophet as his lieutenant. Thus the Mahdi may be the False Prophet.
By the way, the Antichrist is never called this in Revelation. He is referred to 33 times as "the Beast". In fact his full title is, "The Beast who ascends out of the Abyss having seven heads and ten horns". The word 'beast' is used 35 times in the Apocalypse and 33 of these refer to the man we call the Antichrist.
What is the Beast? What is the Abyss and why does he have to ascend out of it? What are the ten horns and seven heads? I guess you will have to read my recent e-Book "The Return of the Antichrist and the New World Order",to find the answers to these questions. LOL.
You can read the Intro at www.neph.ie
God bless,
Paddy
a consideration of the context and such principles as observing to whom something is addressed and about whom it is speaking, etc. will be sufficient to understand the Biblical record correctly.
Speculations and not observing those principles will lead to a wrong understanding of the Biblical record, whether folks doing so think they understand it correctly or not .... Here a rather simple question: Why are the USA and Iran and nuclear weapons etc etc introduced into a record that knows nothing whatever nor mentions anything about these?
I'll leave it at that ... and will just add that I do not think that the Biblical record is often confused (as you claim above) rather it seems to me that interpretations which do not properly consider above mentioned principles are what is more or less confused
Cheers,
Wolfgang
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