In A Twinkling of An Eye

It’s Superbowl Sunday today. Not that I get too excited about football. I actually could care less. Oops, did I say that out loud? Did my husband hear me speak such blasphemy? Sorry dear, you know me. I can’t pretend to be someone else.

All the pomp, all the excitement, all the celebration for football. And then there’s me, bleh. I just can’t get excited about football. I have been thinking a lot about heaven lately. Probably because things are so chaotic in our country, it feels like the end of the world. I long for Jesus to come and take His children out of this world to be caught up with Him in the air. The rapture! I want to be there when it happens.

My salvation came through seeing the movie, “A Thief in the Night.” It’s a movie about the rapture taking place, in which this woman is left behind. That movie scared me so badly, I immediately went home and accepted the Lord in my bedroom. After my conversion, I became obsessed with the idea of a rapture. I was so excited, I tried to look up in my concordance to find all the verses talking about it. I couldn’t find the word “rapture” anywhere in there. I consulted my mom and she told me the word rapture wasn’t there, but the description of it was. Later on in life, I realized the word “Bible” wasn’t in there either. So not to worry.

I have always been fascinated with the rapture. When I went to a Bible College, I took every class I could on the subject: Revelations, Eschatology, Church and Last Things, and anything else having to do with the end. I’ve spent many hours studying the subject.

I know there’s talk in the Christian world about whether the rapture will take place before the tribulation or after. In fact, there’s a lot of debate about it. Personally, I am a strong pre-tribber. From what I have studied over the years, it’s fairly plain, that the rapture is going to happen before the tribulation. There’s more evidence for pre-trib than for anything else. For a post trib point of view, you have to do a lot of twisting and forcing round puzzle pieces into square holes. It just doesn’t add up. I know there are some that will argue with me. But that’s okay. You aren’t going to change my mind on the subject.

Some of the strongest evidence I have for pre-trib comes from 1 Thessalonians when Paul is trying to comfort the Thessalonians. You see, apparently, a letter went out, telling the early Christians, that the rapture had taken place. They were understandably freaked, thinking they were left behind. So Paul goes on to comfort them with when it should take place and that it hadn’t yet. The biggest key to that, is the revealing of the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ will not be revealed until the great restrainer is taken out. Well the great restrainer is the Holy Spirit. And the only way He can be removed, is if God takes all the people out who the Holy Spirit inhabits. Thus, the rapture. It’s hard to argue with that.

If Paul used the idea of a rapture to comfort early Christians, we should comfort ourselves with the same idea. I like thinking about the rapture. It does comfort me. Sometimes, when I’m having a real bad day I think to myself, it could happen at any moment. And then, I tell God that now would be a really good time. I must amuse God.