There are many divisive subjects in Christianity, all taking on fears and biases of moods or teachers as St. Paul wrote in his time of different groups in some claiming to be of Paul and some of other leaders.
The reality is drinking grape juice or drinking wine in Communion, no more than sprinkling or dunking in Baptism, does not Grace a Believer into Heaven. Abraham never took Communion nor was he Baptized. That is not to state those Sacraments are not vital, but one gains admission to Heaven only through the One Way, One Truth and One Life, and this is Jesus the Christ, Thee only begotten Son of God and Savior to all who answer His call to become the Spiritual children of God.
In noting that, a teaching arose called the Rapture. The basis of this is said to be John Nelson Darby in 1830 AD. To not get caught in the details, the Rapture was invented by people who in reading the Bible were terrified of the events of the Great Tribulation, and reasoned a way out of this to comfort themselves.
The Great Tribulation is a terrifying event structure of God's wrath poured out on evil and ending it in this world, at the blade of the sword of Jesus the Christ, when He returns in His Personage as King of kings and Lord of Lords to complete victory at the Battle of Armageddon.
The Faithful must understand that this is not to scare people at all in God's Justice, because that is what this is, is a balancing of the accounts in your favor, in God recompensing evil for all it has done to you as His child.
Atonement at Armageddon is an act of God's Love in removing evil and evil people, to the end they have chosen contrary to God, so the seared do not degrade to a worse condition as those at Sodom and the cities there or Canaan.
God's first divorce of Israel and Judah, with full execution and slaughter was an act of Love in ending reprobates from interfering as in Noah's time with God's Plan of Salvation.
God is not going to lose one person though, just as he sifted the children of Israel and never lost one of the Faithful, who became the western peoples of Christianity, led by the tribes of Joseph in his sons, who are Great Britain and America.
This foundation and understanding of God's Love, where Love has no fear as God has purpose and planning for all His children is the reality so that when one begins to examine the wrong teaching of the rapture, that one can know that God protects His children.
The rapturians teach that Jesus appears and all of the Faithful vanish, to be in Heaven and then return with Him after the final 7 year cycle as spoken of by the Prophet Daniel in what the Holy Ghost moved him to reveal.
Jesus though in the Revelation He gave in the last Book of the Bible has St. John record this in Revelation 7:14.
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
"These" that John has seen are stated as having come out of the Great Tribulation. COME OUT, means in verbiage that they were in the Great Tribulation and not taken out before the event.
No where in Scripture, including in Revelation context does it ever show, nor did Jesus ever say He would take people out of this world before the Great Tribulation.
In Revelation, chapter 6 verse 11, John records Jesus Revelation in the following:
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
In verse 12, John records the time line in this:
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
The darkened sun and moon as blood is a frequent way mark in Scripture. In Joel 2:10, Joel 2:31 and Joel 3:15, this event is recorded.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.
We know now that there are martyrs who have been murdered, martyrs who are coming out of the Great Tribulation and martyrs that will be killed during the Great Tribulation.
Now let Jesus explain the time line completely as He did in the Revelation synopsis of Matthew 24 verse 29:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Jesus just gave the time of the sun darkened and moon as blood, as after the Great Tribulation has taken place and is winding down to His return when the world is gathered to Armageddon at war.
Some rapturians have attempted to state that Jesus takes out the Faithful, and then a new crop of Faithful somehow repent to go through the rapture and are spoken of.
The Bible does not teach that, and in fact it calls into question how a loving God could rescue an immense host from suffering supposedly and then in absolute abandonment allow millions of repentant people to be murdered in going through this horrid time.
God does not do for one person what He would not do for another. God is not a respecter of persons. He treats all the same.
In Revelation 11 chapter 3, Jesus reveals His two witnesses, the chosen of the Christian Faithful. Are these two Christians in Jerusalem supposed to be converts? The answer is not in the least as these are Faithful who are on earth before the Great Tribulation and are involved in it.
They in fact are prosecutorial witnesses who send torments on the earth to the extent that when satan murders them, the entire world has a three day celebration, before the Spirit of God enters into them, and God orders them to "Come up hither" and they arise to Heaven as their enemies look on.
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
God would not rapture all Faithful out and then leave two of the most Faithful to be murdered and suffer alone in the Great Tribulation.
Some teachers like Jack Van Impe misquotes Scriptures as in Revelation 4:1 as evidence of the Rapture, when in fact the verse is spoken of to only St. John, so he can be shown these things.
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
The greatest refutation of the Rapture comes in Revelation 20:4 by St. John in:
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
One notes this group is witnesses for Jesus and the Word of God, who had not worshiped the reincarnated Roman Empire and it's ruler, as the only way one could deny the 666 mark was having been in the Great Tribulation to be murdered by the anti Christ and it's associates, because the full scope of the trauma of this does not start until the half way point of the last 7 year cycle.
There is a false peace in a coming treaty that the world exists under, and the anti Christ progresses it's power grab for the world system to set up the anti God rule which the universe and earth convulses in rejection of.
In Daniel 12:11 and 12, the Holy Angels reveal to him more proof of that no rapture has taken Christians out of the world.
And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
This time period spoken of is the final 7 year cycle yet to be initiated. It is divided up into 3 1/2 years. The first part is false peace of the anti Christ, and the second part is the real chaos of the Great Tribulation.
Those spoken of as "blessed" are those who have gone through the entire period, and for those who do not comprehend the 1335th day, the mystery is simple.
The Lord returns at the end of the 7 years in the only second coming Jesus has. The 1335th day is that day in December when He re consecrates the Temple made desolate by the abomination of satan being offered to on the Holy Altar.
Matthew 24:14 and 15 are Jesus provided verses in this time line:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
In verse 16 Jesus warns the Faithful in Judea:
Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:In verse 21, Jesus notes the time:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.We have already read in Matthew 24:29, that after the Great Tribulation, the sun is darkened and the moon is red. So we know the time line in complete form and Jesus is telling Faithful people in Jerusalem exactly to flee for their lives.
Jesus did not come to Rapture those Christians out, but told them to flee as they were going to remain in the world at war.
The reality of the Bible is plainly put and supported by other Prophets as the Bible interprets itself. There will arise a reincarnated super power in the Roman Empire. At it's head will be satan, the anti Christ and the false prophet in an unholy trinity.
They will bring a false peace treaty to a very frightened world and deceive the Faithful if possible. For those who question such things, observe what demonic influence created in Barack Obama being called a messiah and a god, in how many hundreds of millions around the world followed him.
Around Easter or Passover in the middle of this 7 year period, the anti Christ offers to satan at the Temple, and then the final events of the Great Tribulation unfold with fury, in that poisonous star Wormwood hitting the earth, the sun darkened, moon red, immense wars that gather to a valley north of Jerusalem whose choke point is Har Megiddo, and called in Greek Armageddon.
Armageddon is Atonement or Yom Kippur. All of this starts in the autumn and ends 7 years later in the autumn when Christ returns with a trump and all are gathered to Him in the twinkling of an eye changed.
Matthew 24:31
And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
As Jesus notes in the Matthew time line, this takes place after the Great Tribulation in verse 21 which is 10 verses earlier.
The Great Tribulation is honestly a time for the Glory and Honor of God. God would never cheat His Faithful from this time as Daniel 12:10 explains:
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
The Great Tribulation's purpose for Christians is a time for all of us. Some of us have chosen to lay down their lives for Christ as martyrs numbering in the millions in not saving their lives to gain them in Christ. Some will witness and all will be tried in this fire and made even brighter lights for the Glory and Honor of God.
People have chosen destinies they have chosen with Joy. None have ever failed from St. John to Joan of Arc for all are Christ's Who overcame all first and by the Holy Ghost Who guides each of us.
All of this has been worked out, and the Prophet and Apostles have longed to look upon this time which the Elect were born into, as this is their chosen time for purpose.
Jesus knows this time will be trying, that is why He warned of it often to have people prepare. That is what the parable of the 10 Virgins was about in trimming lamps and keeping watch. We are to always be watchful for this coming time and to keep the Faith in Christ.
I have longed for this time, not for the hardships, but because this was the time I was born for. All of this preparation is necessary for Christians, but I want the Lord to return. I want to see Prophecy fulfilled. I want to bless the two witnesses for their work. I want to see Christians fulfilled as only the Great Tribulation can accomplish this. I want to see Jesus come quickly in his second and only coming. No partial peeking in the clouds, but Him shining like lightning east to west and all bowing or cowering before my Lord and Master.
I have prayed and continue to pray that the Lord gives me Light in the darkness and His Peace in the Great Tribulation. I do not intend to suffer as I have been persecuted enough already in preparing this time.
I will though go through this with the Tiger Lily with Joy as I know Jesus will carry us and I know He is coming on the other side.
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22:20
God bless you my child, and may the Truth sown by you in those you love, be blessed in Christ and bear fruit by the Holy Ghost guiding in Jesus Name Amen and Amen
agtG 222
It all You, Lord Christ, not me in the least. All Glory and Honor are the Father's, Your's and the Holy Ghost. Here am I nothing, but a conduit to serve You. It is so.
