It seems that wickedness and lawlessness has expanded across the whole earth, in the last 3 years, at an exponential rate.

If wickedness can be define as behavior which is contrary to God’s moral law, we are seeing an unprecedented explosion. Consider the United States of America.

Who could have fathomed 25 years ago, that the United States of America, supposed to be a Christian nation, would be the largest promotor of the LGBTQ agenda, in the world. The U.S. outranks every other nation in gender reassignment surgery. This satanic ideology is pressed upon younger and younger children; through the numbed minds of foolish parents.

Recently, Alicyn Simpson, who heads the UPMC Children’s Hospital, in Pittsburg, relayed her primary reason for taking the job, was to increase gender reassignment surgeries in preadolescents. Here is reason… that adults who want to change their sex will have a store house of fresh sexual organs to transplant onto and into them.

Lawlessness does not mean, only behavior apart from God’s moral law, but laws erected apart from the wisdom of God and in favor of the antichrist agenda. Have we not seen this with the rise of unlawful dictates from leaders the world over, in response to Covid-19?

Governments the world over have mandated submission over their constituents, for the supposed health of everyone, over a virus that for most people is no more life threatening than a bad flu.

So duplicitous were standards for these mandates, in the United States, hundreds of thousands were shamed and threatened, into wearing masks and getting jabs, while millions were allowed illegally into the country, with not such requirement, along the southern border.

To many Christians in the USA and in western countries around the world, the rise of wickedness and lawlessness, are sure signs of the rapture around the corner. Although I believe in what we term the rapture, there is a false hope, that we will get out of here before it gets to much more difficult.

Let me ask, is that even close to a biblical idea of the Christians life?

The answer is no, especially when we consider the suffering of the church for over two thousand years. Our hope in Christ is not that we escape persecution or extreme difficulty against our faith, but that our blessed hope, gives us hope to endure until He comes for us.

The majority of Christians in America, Canada, England and Australia, believe that the rapture will occur before things turn considerably worse, and do this with little more than out of context passages of scripture, and philosophical ideology.

For much of the Christian world, end times prophecy has been whittled down to interpretation which protects and propagates the pre-tribulational rapture. This is unfortunate, in my opinion, and may be a ploy from the enemy to distract followers of Christ from their true mission, in the very last days of human history.

I am sure this will rattle more than a few cages, and it ought too. Far too often, in the Church in America, we simply believe what we are told, without examining it in light of the totality of scripture and in the appropriate context.

To be sure, Christ is coming for His church, for the purpose of gathering us together, to meet Him in the air, Hallelujah!

From that time, we will be with Christ forever. Hallelujah!

Concerning the timing of this blessed event, the word of God gives us clear indication of the timing of the in gathering of the Church to Christ.

In this series of articles, we will examine 7 clear signs which precede the Day of Christ, the time which He gathers His saints together to meet Him in the air. Please do not stop reading because you are already offended. Prayerfully consider the information presented and then decide.

To begin with, consider that the pre-tribulational viewpoint contains the least, in context, biblical evidence, and was not known of until 192 years ago. This perspective on the rapture was popularized in the teaching and writing of John Nelson Darby, 1830 years after the church was announced on the day of Pentecost. Keep that in mind.

Some would declare that this reveals a scriptural foundation, being that prophecy concerning the Christ’s return, was sealed up until the end (Daniel 12:4). This thinking is a broad overreach. The sealing of Daniel’s prophecy means that it would not be able to be understood fully, until the Jewish people returned to their land for the last time, as prophesied in Ezekiel 37 (the prophet give many prophecies concerning this event from chapter 25-48). Israel’s return was still over one hundred years away, at the time Darby published his works.

Also, the narrative that the pre-tribulation view of the rapture is a biblical and historically orthodox tenant of faith, is patently false. Some Pre-tribulation scholars go to great lengths to search church fathers, and find out of context quotes, to prove their point. Sadly, they do this with scripture as well, to make their case.

Before advancing further, let us clarify some biblical terminology.

The word “rapture” is an English translation of a French word, used to describe a biblical event that is very important to the church of Jesus Chris. The term “rapture” does not appear in our English translations, nor in any other language used in the writing scripture of the scripture or its copying in the manuscripts .

This can be problematic, and often plays a role in taking biblical terms used, out of their context.

Some will declare, in argument, that the word “Trinity”, an English translation of a French word meaning “three-fold”, is not found in the biblical text. I agree and I am also fine using the term that is in the word of God describing His triune nature, which is Godhead.

Although using terms like “rapture” or “trinity” are not wrong in and of themselves, without understanding the actual biblical terms used, these words describe and as well as the context they are in, we can miss the message.

How does God’s written word describe the “rapture” of the church?
• The “gathering of the elect” or “our gathering together to Him” (Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27; I Thessalonians 2:1)
• That “Day” or “the day of the Lord” or “the Day of Christ” (Luke 21:34; I Thessalonians 5:2; Philippians 1:6; II Thessalonians 2:3).
• When we are “caught up together” (I Thessalonians 4:17)
• “…but we shall all be changed—in a moment” (I Corinthians 15:51-52).
• The “reaping of the earth” (Revelation 14:14-16).

In these phrases and passages we see that an appropriate biblical terminology is “our gathering together to Him”. Let me issue a biblical challenge to you for proof. When you next read the word of God, read I Thessalonians and II Thessalonians in one sitting. Go back to I Thessalonians 4 and read chapter 4, 5 and then II Thessalonians 1 and 2.

The reason for this challenge is that we often read epistles that have one, two or three letters to one group of people, as disjointed from the others and the problems associated with each letter. This is a tremendous error, for if there are two letters, they usually address the same issues or at least issues closely related.

In the church of Thessalonica, there were false teachers causing trouble in the flock, by saying “in gathering” what we modern Christians call the “rapture”, had taken place. This ought not to surprise us, because it was the Arian heresy (where the Jehovah’s Witness get their heretical doctrine). In this heresy they declared the elect are already abiding in heaven and the meek shall inherit the earth (their lie was Christ had already come for only the elect).

Therefore, Paul addresses this heresy and the truth from God’s word, in two letters, even giving signs that must take place before the “our gathering together to Him” or what is referred to as the “rapture” in our day.

Why is this important? Because when we use terms to describe doctrine, we set ourselves up for undue criticism and errors when those words are not associated with the language used. This can and does, at times, lead the saints into a false belief.

I believe that a pre-tribulational rapture perspective has risen through this error and anyone who challenges it, even within the context of solid biblical exegesis, is shouted down as a contrarian, foolish or even heretical.

Remember I believe that Christ’s coming for His church is imminent, and for the purpose of gathering us together, to meet Him in the air, Hallelujah!

The only problem is that we may be putting our hope in unscriptural ideas about it’s time frame, being before beginning of the tribulation.

In our next article we will examine the doctrine of imminence (which means about to happen), concerning the Day of Christ’s in gathering of the Church, where we meet Him in the air. We will begin to see the various stages of Christ’s return to earth and rejoice that His glorious return may have already started.