How exactly do we escape
This is going to sound unbelievable, but brace yourself - we are now dealing with the supernatural. It's like in a war situation. Before the war and chaos starts, a country calls it Ambassadors home. The King of heaven is calling His people home in the same way. Let's go straight to the striking description of this event from the Bible. From Paul's 1st letter to the Thessalonian Church, the first of his many letters to various Churches.
“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
See also from the same letter, that like Enoch, Christians will be rescued and extracted before the 'time of the judgement' comes
“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.”
Paul talks about this again in his letter 1 Corinthians ch 15, This is when/how we believers get our New Eternal Body! How good will that be!
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”
It seems almost too marvellous to believe! God's extraction plan! Jesus is coming in the clouds - to gather His Church - and take us to Heaven!! This is a 'Mystery' event, i.e. not explicitly mentioned in the OT. Christians know this event as The Rapture of the Church (from the Latin word 'rapturo' for this 'snatching away'). But we have shown the shadows/examples/types of this event in the OT. This is a separate and different event from 'The Return', or 'Second Coming of Jesus Christ' when He lands on the Mount of Olives at the end of this 7 year period of chaos. Then He will come with His armies following, to fight against the Antichrist and the evil rulers of earth, and to win the famous Battle of Armageddon. Many Christians get confused by these two dramatic events, and are unsure of the difference and the sequence, since this is rarely taught in church. But a serious study of God's Word clearly reveals exactly what we are sharing here. The sequence of events is clearly laid out by Paul below. He is reminding those he met with previously of the words given to him by God about these end times, and how lawlessness will prevail. The 'one who is holding back the power of evil' in this letter is the Holy Spirit of God, indwelling Christians who collectively form The Church. When these people are extracted, the Holy Spirit - that power for good on the earth - will depart, and evil will run rampant.
“Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
Will you be ascending?
If you do not know Jesus, it is not too late for you to join 'The Elect'/'The Church'/ The 'Body of Christ’ ; - the group being extracted and taken to Heaven. You can follow a very simple process to ensure you are not left behind. Read on and see the next page - 'What does it mean to be a Follower?' - or if The Church (the elect) has already gone, you can still get to spend eternity with Jesus, rather than the scary alternative. See 3 Choices page.
