Summary of Bible references on the Rapture

Jesus is "coming as a thief", what exactly will He be stealing?

1. He will be taking those who are fully committed and dedicated to Him, that is not stealing, they belong to Him, so it is not right to say that is like a thief.

2. The apostate church would have the rug pulled out from under them and their whole house of cards will collapse. But I don't think that can be likened to a thief in the night. When a person committing fraud is exposed we don't consider the person exposing them to be a thief.

So the rapture is not like a thief, and the judgement on the apostate church is not like a thief.

3. Think about the story of the Grinch, he wanted to "steal Christmas". In that story they discover that the gifts, and ribbons, and bows and paper and lights are not "Christmas". No, what made "Christmas" was the spirit of faith, hope and love. This is what the Lord will be taking from the earth, the Faith, the hope and the love.

Revelation 12:6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

https://rumble.com/v20cl5u-todd-benson-on-increase-border-crisis-in-el-paso.html

About eight days after these sayings

I think the transfiguration is a type of the rapture. I also think this reference to eight days is important and I really think this reference to "about eight days" is important. But I want to look at the verses preceding this because the context is that it is about 8 days after the Lord says this.


Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ
18 And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

19 So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.”

20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection
21 And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”

Take Up the Cross and Follow Him
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.”

1. Declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God
2. Declaration that we are about to enter the tribulation where believers will suffer many things, be rejected and be killed.
3. Charge that if you want to follow the Lord you must take up the cross and follow Him.

This is precisely what the Maccabees said at the start of the Hannukah rebellion. 1. Faith in God being with them. 2. It is going to get bad. 3. This is the path to take to victory. So then I would say it is "about eight days" after the start of the feast of Hannukah.

Jesus Transfigured on the Mount
28 Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

So why does it say "about eight days". I don't know. But I do know this is how we talk when trying to go back and forth between Bible days which begin at sundown and Gregorian days which begin at midnight.

I think this points to a period of time with a little bit of confusion over times and seasons. This also suggests that someplaces on earth it will be 8 days and some places it will still be seven days. If this took place around midnight in the US (and there is a 4 hour window from East coast to West coast) then it would still be the seventh day in some parts of the earth by Gregorian standards.

The eighth day of Hannukah is very significant. A menorah lamp only has seven lamps, but because the light lasted for 9 days a Hannukah lamp has 9 lamps. The first seven depict the church and the last two depict the two witnesses.

This year the 8th day of Hannukah is doubly significant because it is December 25th, an appointed feast day for Christianity celebrating the birth of the man child.

This year the 8th day of Hannukah is triply important because it falls on the Lord's day which is the only appointed feast in the New testament for believers and the church to keep until the Lord returns.

Matthew 24:15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand),

The abomination of desolation refers to the Antichrist in the temple offering up pigs. We saw this at Hanukkah. So this verse is a reference to Hanukkah being fulfilled.

We see this verse in Matthew and in Mark but not in Luke.

The concept is that Matthew refers to those who are here at the end of the tribulation, Mark to the believers who are left behind during the tribulation and Luke to those who are raptured prior to the tribulation. So the tribulation is all about a fulfillment of the feast of Hanukkah.

Hagar was mistreated by Sarah

9 The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.” 10 Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” 11 And the Angel of the Lord said to her:

“Behold, you are with child,
And you shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
Because the Lord has heard your affliction.

My point in this thread is that God uses people to afflict us. His judgements are right in this and He does this in faithfulness.

So let's consider this, Sarah told Abraham to go into Hagar and when he did she conceived. You can't blame Hagar or Abraham for this, it was Sarah that did this. However once Hagar conceived Sarah became jealous and afflicted her. The Bible says that Sarah "dealt harshly with her". That is not right, or is it?

4 So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.

This was Hagar's sin. The Bible says "if you forgive those who trespass against you then your heavenly Father can also forgive you". Hagar sinned first, what Sarah did to Hagar let her know what it is like to be despised by others.

Now the question I have is did she forgive Sarah? Look at what God says about her son

He shall be a wild man;
His hand shall be against every man,
And every man’s hand against him.
And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

If you don't deal with sin in your life you can infect others with it. She despised her master and her son was ten times worse. Have you ever been around someone who always complains about their boss and everyone they work with is wrong and every few years they need to get another job and yet everywhere they work it is always the same story, everyone is wrong except them?

We forgive others so that God can forgive us. Having our sin forgiven is healing, it restores us, it puts a stop to it.

Look at what this says:

Behold, you are with child,
And you shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
Because the Lord has heard your affliction.

The Lord has heard her afflictions. She has been complaining. Non stop. He didn't hear her prayer, her praise, her worship, her repentance, no, he heard her affliction. When you are complaining about your affliction turn it to prayer. God wants to hear from us. The affliction is not supposed to turn you to complaints but rather to prayer and repentance.

Hagar obviously was not going to repent, so what does God do? He gives her a son, Ishmael, and she will see that she is going to produce a "donkey of a man" who will be against everyone and everyone against him. She will see the fruit of her sin. Maybe that will turn her to repent.

Leah was unloved

31 When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. 32 So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.”

If you read this story it seems there is no hint of sin from Leah. She had nothing to do with deceiving Jacob, this was her father's doing, and she desperately wanted to be loved by Jacob. So then how do you explain this, what is the sin that she needs to forgive so that God could forgive her? Read on!

God opened Leah's womb to have kids while at the same time making it so that Rachel did not bear any children. So this struggle begins, Rachel gives her maid to Jacob who bears two children, and Leah gives her maid to Jacob who also bears two children. And Leah had four children at this point. There are 8 babies running around, Reuben is the oldest, maybe six years old at this point, and Rachel is there no children.

14 Now Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15 But she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” And Rachel said, “Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”

Reuben goes out and picks some wildflowers for his mom. Rachel sees this, the aunt without any kids, and she asks Leah if she could have those flowers. Rachel has changed her attitude. Instead of competing with her sister, she decides she wants to be part of the family, to enjoy all the kids. She isn't the mother but she is the aunt. Instead of being jealous about what she doesn't have she wants to celebrate what she does have. This is when we discover Leah's unforgiveness in her heart. She married Jacob with "deceit" that made things hard enough, but then her sister comes and marries her husband a week later. Imagine how hard that would be in a normal marriage, but to be unloved because Jacob had been cheated and then Rachel comes and takes him away from her. So Rachel for the first time sees what happened through her sister's eyes. Leah had nothing to do with this, it was Laban, she is the victim. So she makes a deal with her sister, you let me be the loving aunt for your children and in exchange you get Jacob for the night. It sounds crass, but remember what happened, Jacob worked for 7 years to get Rachel and then was cheated. Now Leah can replay the wedding night without any deceit, she has bought him. The sin that Leah needed to be forgiven of is her unforgiveness to Rachel. As a result Rachel was "unloved", an aunt shunned from the family. As a result of Rachel having her heart enlarged to see that she could enjoy all the children and the whole family Rachel is considered the Mother of Israel. Her heart embraced all the children as her own.

After this the situation in the family was restored. Leah was loved, Jacob chose to be buried alongside Leah.

Hanukkah and the Tribulation

When Jesus was cut off that is like a divorce. So the issue is the rededication of the temple.

During Hanukkah the temple was defiled by sacrificing a pig, similar to a picture of an adulterous woman being defiled. This is where we are after Jesus crucifixion. So for the Jews there needs to be a very serious restoration, a rededication of the temple.

The same is also true of the apostate church. They also are defiled similar to a pig being sacrificed in the temple.

Not only so but we learn that Antiochus was a type of the Antichrist who is to come. We see the same story being played out during the tribulation with him setting himself up in the temple, proclaiming to be God, again a figure of an adulterous wife.

Now I can surely understand why everyone would take issue with Christmas as it is not Biblical. But, the 8th day of Hanukkah is Biblical, the 8th day is Biblical and the Lord's day is Biblical. So then the fact that all these things happen on Christmas this year, is that coincidence or is that prophetic? Jesus is Lord of all and when He does return there will be no excuses from anyone. They will learn that He was telling them everywhere and the problem was not that the Lord didn't tell them in advance, the problem was their ears had waxed dull of hearing.

https://rumble.com/v20kl98-russia-threatens-first-strike-use-of-nuclear-weapons-12142022.html

Russia Threatens First Strike Use of Nuclear Weapons 12/14/2022

Pope Francis Declares ‘Jesus is Satan’, Vows To Usher in ‘One World Religion’

https://newspunch.com/pope-francis-declares-jesus-is-satan-vows-to-usher-in-one-world-religion/

Consider the story of the ten virgins in light of Hanukkah. We had 5 who were wise and 5 who were foolish because the oil for half of them was running out. We think oh, the first five had stored up enough oil. But that is not the story of Hanukkah. In that story they only had enough oil for one day, so why didn't their oil run out? Because they were giving themselves fully to the Lord, they dedicated themselves to God. So their word which they had was mixed with faith that God was with them.

Affliction from a boss who changes your wages

38 These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten the rams of your flock. 39 That which was torn by beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it. You required it from my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40 There I was! In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from my eyes. 41 Thus I have been in your house twenty years; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42 Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

If you read the story there is no sin from Jacob and yet Laban changed his wages ten times and it was a real affliction that God was aware of. Or was there?

Let's forgive Laban, what do we see. We learn that Jacob has discovered how to breed various traits into animals. If Laban changes the contract so that he gets all the sheep that are this or that coat then Jacob adjusts the breeding so that is what he gets. Changing this ten times was like running a science experiment over and over again to prove you have control of this and can determine what traits you want bred into the animals.

OK, so what sin of Jacob does God now forgive? Jacob had been given a dream of angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven to get treasures from heaven. Understanding genetics and how to breed various traits is one of the great treasures of all human history and certainly a great treasure to pass down to your children who are also shepherds. Where is Jacob's worship and praise? We see a grudging acknowledgement that God had "seen" his affliction. With Hagar God heard her complaints, but here God "sees" his affliction. This is like those who fast and make sure they "appear to be fasting". Jesus called them hypocrites. We are all cut from the same block of cheese and unless we see our sin and forgive others we will not be healed from this.

Joseph was hated and betrayed

52 And the name of the second he called Ephraim: “For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

We should all know the story, sold into slavery by his brothers and then framed by his bosse's wife and sent to prison. You would think that he would be very angry, bitter old man. But instead he tells his brothers that these things were "God's doing".

Genesis 45:5 But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.

He was mistreated worse than Hagar was. He was unloved worse than Leah was. And he was mistreated by his boss worse than Jacob was. But he had a vision, he saw that God was working all things to good for those who love God and are called according to purpose. He made sure no one heard him complaining which is why the guards appreciated him so much and he made sure no one saw him "fasting" which is why he cleaned up before going to Pharaoh. He also saw that he had received a double blessing.

Clearly he forgave his brothers and his former boss. He saw they were merely tools used by God to accomplish His purpose which was the salvation of mankind.