So you’re at the local coffeehouse with a friend, visiting and catching up. It’s been awhile since you’ve seen one another but you quickly pick up right where you left off from your last visit, catching up on family, careers and the latest happenings. Your friend is a Christ-follower, too, so the conversation naturally turns to Jesus … how end-time signs and events are escalating and how wonderful “the rapture” will be, when Christ returns to meet all born-again believers in the clouds.
The word ‘rapture’ doesn’t appear in the Bible. It means ‘caught up’ and is used to describe when the Lord reveals Himself to His Church of spiritually born believers. In an instant, He meets them in the clouds, and they will receive new bodies and be with the Lord forever! Hallelujah!
The rapture is not to be confused with Christ’s Second Coming, when He returns to defeat the Antichrist, destroy evil, and establish His millennial kingdom, as described in Revelation 19:11-19.
1Thessalonians 4:14-17 – “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
In Verse 14, ‘sleep in Jesus’ means the 'born-again believers who have already passed away'. When the trump sounds, those who ‘sleep in Jesus’ will rise first; then the believers who are alive on earth at the time of the rapture follow, meeting in the air to be with the Lord forever. Those left behind will surely be overcome by surprise and confusion, but it will be a glorious day for all of God’s children!
Will you be meeting Jesus in the air that ‘one day’?
You can choose to become a child of God through spiritual birth (accepting God’s gift of eternal life) before leaving this earth, or be destined for hell and the lake of fire forever.
Will the rapture be a ‘glorious day’ for you?
Artists: Casting Crowns
Writers: Mark Hall & Michael Bleecker
