THE BLESSED HOPE

OUR GATHERING UNTO HIM

The strangest event in human history is about to take place.  This can happen at any time.  The hosts of heaven are looking forward to it.  All the saints who have gone on before us are excited about it.  It is the Rapture of the church.

Paul wrote about the Rapture of the Christian church in the book of Thessalonians.  In 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 16 and 17, we read the following: 'For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord.'

The Rapture, then, according to the bible, is the catching away from the earth of all blood-washed, bible believing, born again Christians, dead or alive.  The dead among them will be raised first while the living will be changed.  Together they will be caught up in the clouds to meet their Lord, Jesus Christ, in the air.  This event is the first phase of the second coming of Christ.

At the Rapture, Christ will appear in person in the air but He will not be visible to the inhabitants of the earth.  His mission then will be to come and resurrect all dead saints who along with the living believers will be clothed with immortality and shall be caught up to be with the Lord.

At this time of the disappearance of all the saints, it would not matter where they are.  At the time of the Rapture, for instance, if an airline pilot in the cockpit of an airborne plane is a born again Christian, he or she would simply vanish.  In such a situation, it will be left to the co-pilots to ensure that the plane does not crash.  Should a newsreader on television or radio be a born again, practising Christian, a similar thing would happen and the listeners will be left wondering about what has gone wrong.  Should the Rapture take place during a football match, those in the two teams who are blood-washed, born again Christians will simply not be seen again.  They would have been caught up to be with the Lord.  At the end of the game, both teams are bound to discover that they completed the match with less than the required number of men or women on either side.  On the matrimonial bed, at the Rapture, if the wife is a born again Christian and the husband is not, the wife will disappear.  The Lord Jesus Christ Himself also spoke about this event in the book of Matthew chapter 24.

These disappearances will occur in every continent, in every country, in every city, in every town, in every village, on every university campus and in every organisation where there are born again, blood-washed, practising Christians.  Hundreds of thousands of people will be declared missing everywhere.  As a result, several communities around the world will be gripped with fear and panic not knowing the whereabouts of many of their loved ones.  According to the bible, this event will take place suddenly without any warning, in a twinkling of an eye.  However, it will be heralded by the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.  This will signal the end of the church age.  The church age is the period between the Pentecost and the Rapture.

The bible also teaches that when the church, that is, the body of born again Christians is caught up with the Lord in the air, the marriage between Christ and His church will take place.  There, at the judgement seat of Christ, the saints will receive rewards for all their labours of love and for their faithfulness to their Lord while on earth.  This will be followed by the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  The book of Revelation chapter 19 verses 6 to 9 dwell on the wedding of the Lamb.