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.
As we watch the world grow increasingly violent and lawless, how do we know that the Lord will rescue us before the world feels the full weight of God’s wrath? What if we are not walking with the Lord at the time of His appearing? Will we be left behind?
1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 answers these questions for us. For those of us in Christ, it’s a passage that drips with God’s grace toward us as New Testament Saints.
The Bible is quite clear about our joyful hope of receiving immortal bodies at Jesus’ appearing (1 Corinthians 15:48-54, Philippians 3:20-21).
This is not a fringe teaching, not at all, but it comes from several passages where the wording is unmistakable and cannot be misconstrued to mean anything else than our hope of resurrected bodies .
As many of you can attest, those of us in this group have been disenfranchised, ostracized, by churches that claim to believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.
How did we get to this place? Why are we regarded as outcasts in churches that claim to believe the Bible and in many cases faithfully proclaim the saving message of the cross?
How can you not see the signs of the last days everywhere you look?
For most of you, the question is a confirmation of what you believe rather than one expressing doubt in your convictions. For those that place their hope in the church rather than Jesus’ imminent appearing, I have much for them to consider.
In Philippians 3:20, Paul wrote, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The residents of first century AD Philippi understood the value and meaning of citizenship. As a Roman colony, they enjoyed many of its privileges. The also understood what it meant to be citizens of a faraway city. For us, the words bring needed reassurance of our glorious hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing.
Scripture is remarkably clear about this: the time leading up to the seven-year Tribulation, as well as the period itself, will be marked by overwhelming and widespread deception.
As we look around us, it’s unmistakable that this has reached epidemic levels, which signifies that we live in the shadow of the coming seven-year Tribulation.
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.
Many regard talk of threats to their wellbeing as conspiracy theories, outcomes they see as so far out of the ordinary that they cannot possibly be true. But what if they are more than just annoying musings of doomsday purveyors?
This article asks you to make the call: Are they conspiracy theories or spoiler alerts of what lies ahead in the future?
As we wait for Jesus’ appearing, our hearts often grow weary amid the rampant evil of our day and the hardships we encounter. Our cry often becomes one of “how much longer, O Lord?”
If you feel overwhelmed with life and long for our Savior to appear and intervene in our world, I am writing especially for you.
We use the word “glory” to refer to many aspects of our walk with the Lord. In a real sense, glorify His name when praise Him and sing worship songs. We see a foretaste of God’s glory in beautiful sunsets, the grandeur of snowcapped mountain tops, and in many ways through the beauty and wonder of nature.
We will not see the full display of Jesus’ glory, however, until He appears to take us up to heaven!
In recent years, however, the Greek Word apostasia, translated “falling away” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, has received heightened scrutiny with many regarding this as a reference to the Rapture.
Can we justify interpreting the word as a physical departure such as would point to Jesus’ appearing to take us back to heaven? I believe we can.
The church is the body of Christ with Jesus as its Head; it does not operate as a kingdom in this present world. And it’s most certainly not the restored kingdom of Israel.
The Lord never intended for His church to behave like a kingdom with an aristocracy that rules over it. We function on earth as Jesus’ body with each member possessing spiritual gifts that support the whole.
As deception, government corruption, violence, and lawlessness increase daily in our world, it becomes increasingly difficult to hang on to our hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing.
How do we keep our focus on the Rapture during these perilous times? Is there any hope for those of us weary of waiting for His return?
The prophetic signs of our day resemble a storm warning. The dark threatening clouds on our horizon point to nearness of the time when the four horses of Revelation 6:1-8 will burst out of their stalls and gallop across the earth.
For us as believers, the black clouds on the horizon signal the nearness of Jesus’ appearing; we will be in heaven with Jesus when He opens the seals.
The Rapture and the Second Coming are different events; they cannot happen at the same time.
In the previous post in this series, we established the Rapture as a biblical event; we have a firm scriptural basis for the series of closely related events that constitute our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:11-14).
