Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
Do you realize that as New Testament saints, we will take part in the most astonishing and magnificent event that the world will ever see?
Revelation 19 begins with thunderous praise for our Savior followed by our celebration with Him at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Then, “arrayed in fine linen, white and pure,” we will follow Jesus back to earth riding on white horses (Revelation 19:11-16) .
In Romans 8:23, the apostle identifies a key aspect of Jesus’ appearing, “the redemption of our bodies,” and then in verse 24 he states, “For in this hope we were saved.” Paul regarded the event we call the “Rapture” as a key belief because it signified the “hope” contained in the saving message of the Gospel.
Though it’s been debunked countless times, a great many saints remain convinced that the doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture originated with John Darby. Although they insist that no one believed in such a thing before him, it’s simply not true.
Let me be clear: If anyone tells you that this teaching originated with John Darby, they are either purposely misleading you or have themselves been the victim of someone deceiving them about its origin.
I have heard many presentations of the Gospel where the pastor never said the words “eternal life,” or if he did, he mentioned it as an afterthought or as part of John 3:16 during his closing prayer. Why do so many pastors refuse to mention the biblically sound promise that we will live forever in imperishable bodies like that of our Lord Jesus
Colossians 1:15-20 doesn’t predict what’s going to happen next or reveal what lies ahead for this world. However, the descriptions of our Savior in these verses verify all that I believe about a pre-Tribulation Rapture, a literal seven-year Tribulation, and Jesus’ thousand-year reign over the nations.
Somewhere in the past, a tragic divorce occurred; theologians decided we must separate the return of Jesus for His church from the proclamation of the Gospel. The results of this untimely divorce have led to a dearth of understanding among believers regarding Jesus’ appearing and the joyful anticipation that comes with such awareness.
The consequences of this have been tragic.
Enoch lived 365 years before God took him away from the earth. From all that we know about the antediluvian world, that’s a long time to walk faithfully with the Lord.
Like Enoch, we must persevere amid today's ridicule of our hope, such as the article CNN mocking the Rapture, as we eagerly await our “blessed hope.”
“If there’s really so much to look forward to in eternity,” you might also ask, “why have so many believers lost their eagerness for it? Why do even seasoned students of prophecy at times lose their focus on our Lord’s appearing and their future reign with Him?”
Why the loss of excitement among believers for our “blessed hope?” Why do saints today have difficulty looking beyond the confines of this temporal world?
At critical times in his life, Esau made terrible decisions because he could not see beyond the moment. He lived for the immediate gratification of his desires without any regard for the consequences, for the future, or for eternity.
Esau’s life alerts us to the dangers of living solely for the temporal world, for things we can see versus those things that are eternal (2 Cor. 4:17-18).
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the Rapture is how it encourages believers during difficult and even dangerous times. We need this its comforting salve now, perhaps more than ever before.
Where else can we turn for hope as a war rages in Europe and threatens to further hinder the supply chain of food to our stores?
The word that’s translated “perilous,” or “difficult” in some translations, is Chalepos. This term denotes the last days as “dangerous” and “hard to bear.” In Matthew 8:28, it depicts the fierceness of the two men possessed by demons. The text says that they were “so fierce that no one could pass that way.”
Such are the dangerous times in which we live, and they will grow increasingly treacherous leading up to and during the seven-year Tribulation.
