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.
Scripture has become my lifeline in these days of such uncertainty. Even so, I often feel heaviness in my soul as I watch the responses to COVID-19 in my state and in my nation. Perhaps the weight I feel comes from sensing that the tribulation is so close I can almost touch it, but in spite of that I remain earthbound eagerly waiting for Jesus’ imminent appearing.
For this article, I want to focus your attention on two particularly encouraging promises from 1 Thessalonians 5;9-10.
Since COVID-19 lock downs began across the United States, I have heard several Bible-based messages intended to comfort the faithful. Many of them, however, failed to offer any real encouragement to me because they ignored or missed the prophetic context of the day in which we live.
Today’s popular messages of comfort ignore what the Bible says is coming and thus leave believers uniformed of what’s at stake for them in the days ahead.
At first it seemed rather odd to me. A Facebook discussion on prophecy ended with a man praising the church. Although I forget most Facebook comments I read, this one has stuck with me for several years.
Why was this person ascribing glory to the church in support of his belief that Jesus had already returned in 70 AD? Though it may not have been his intent, he exalted the body of Christ over its Head.
Our expectation is not the wrath of God that will be poured out during the day of the Lord or the seven year tribulation. Dying side by side with the Christ-rejecting world experiencing God’s horrendous judgments is most assuredly NOT our “blessed hope.” No, no, no! Our imminent expectation consists of seeing Jesus face to face and that moment is rapidly approaching. This is the substance of our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).
Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, I have felt a wide range of emotions. At times anger has surged inside me as I have watched news accounts of many elected officials attempting to take advantage of the crisis for personal or political advantage.
The words of Psalm 46:10 have been my frequent place of refuge the many emotions stirring inside me; they have often restored peace and brought greatly needed reassurance to my soul. Like many of you.
Are you crazy!? I realize some of you might think so after reading my title. How can I be so sure of something so hotly debated within the church? Most Christians either say we cannot know anything for sure about the Lord’s return or they dismiss the rapture altogether.
In spite of all the dissension today, I know Jesus is coming for all His saints, for us, before the start of the tribulation.
If you are like me, you are sick of hearing about COVID-19. I think that’s why I have delayed for so long in writing a post about it. I do not have new information to share about what to expect and I hear the same conflicting information as you do.
However, I do have some suggestions on maintaining a calm spirit during this time of chaos in our world.
A comment on my blog referred to our current day as the “shadow of the tribulation;” I think that is quite accurate. The horrible conditions of the tribulation have not yet started, but we see its ever darkening shadow everywhere in the world.
Here are some examples what it means to live in the shadow of the tribulation:
I remember a scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation television series where Data is in his room watching water come to a boil in a flask. When someone walks in and asks what he is doing he explains that the old adage, “A watched pot never boils,” is just not true. As proof, he says that he has watched water come to a boil 23 times in a row without fail.
For those of us awaiting the imminent return of Jesus, there are days when we are tempted to wonder if a “watched for” Jesus never appears to take us home.
While I do not claim to have 20/20 vision for what lies ahead in the coming year, I believe it could very well be a tumultuous time that will bring the fulfillment of many biblical prophecies much closer if not to fruition.
I am not making predictions with what follows, but rather pointing to certain 2020 events that I believe will make 2020 highly significant in regard to biblical prophecy.
Waiting is difficult! Whether we’re waiting for cold symptoms to subside, a job offer, or a storm in our life to end, it’s never fun waiting (to say the least).
It’s also not easy waiting for Jesus to take us home to heaven as He promised in John 14:2-3. Yet I know so many of you, like me, have been waiting decades for His appearing.
Jesus is coming for His saints, for us, before the start of this awful period in human history.
In the points below, I review the previous signposts that have led to our destination. I believe that combined they provide a solid scriptural foundation for placing the rapture before the start of the day of the Lord.
This brings us to our next signpost on the path to establishing a biblical basis for the pretribulation rapture: church history. The purpose of this signpost is not to justify our belief in the pretribulation rapture on the basis of history nor is it to convince those who reject it on this faulty basis.
Rather, my intent is to provide those who already believe in the rapture with evidence of a belief in it from church history.
Premillennialists regard the book of Revelation as future prophecy, the very thing it claims to be (22:18). As we have acknowledged from the beginning of this series, a discussion of where to place the rapture only makes sense within premillennialism, which maintains beliefs in a literal tribulation and a thousand year reign of Jesus on earth before the millennium.
This brings us to our next signpost on our way to establishing a biblical basis for a pretribulation rapture: Absence. The book of Revelation excludes the church from judgments of the tribulation.
When Jesus comes for His church, will He leave any true believer behind on the earth to endure the horrors of the tribulation?
Some say yes. They claim Jesus will only catch up believers who are watching for His appearing or those walking with Him at the time. In other words, the Lord will leave behind saints lacking in some way.
This teaching contradicts both the Gospel and God’s Word.
As we saw in our last signpost, the false report informing the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord had already begun put these new believers in a state of severe panic (see signpost #6). In response,
This brings us to the next word on our signposts: “Restrainer.” Why is this word so significant? A key event at the start of the tribulation, the revealing of the antichrist, cannot happen until God removes the Restrainer who is currently holding back his unveiling to the world.
Dwight L. Moody once gave the following illustration during a sermon to demonstrate that our salvation is all of grace and not of works . . . .
Each and every one of our good works as believers results from our regeneration that occurs at the moment of our rebirth. Works contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation nor do they keep us saved. It’s all of grace from beginning to end.
